Easter Day — exegesis on the Gospel: John 20:1-18

The readings for Easter Day, along with a number of my previous posts about the Resurrection, can be found here.

I have chosen John’s Gospel, rather than Luke’s, because in 2021, most of the Lenten and Holy Week readings have come from his book.

John refers to himself in verses 2, 4, 5 and 8. Emphases in bold are mine:

John 20:1-18

20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

20:2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

20:3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.

20:4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

20:5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.

20:6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there,

20:7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.

20:8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;

20:9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

20:10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

20:11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb;

20:12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.

20:13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

20:15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

20:16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).

20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

20:18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

This is one of the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection: the first Christian sabbath, as Matthew Henry’s commentary states.

John MacArthur tells us:

You need to understand that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is not just a feature of Christianity, it is the main event; it is the main event.

Resurrection is the point of redemption. The whole purpose of God in creating and redeeming His people is to raise them to eternal glory so that they can worship Him forever. That is the point of His redemption – resurrection to eternal glory in not only glorified spirits, but glorified bodies. Our resurrection is secured by the power of God, the power of Christ demonstrated in His resurrection. Because He lives, we will live.

The resurrection is not only a demonstration of power, it is also a validation of His offering, because God was satisfied with the sacrifice Christ offered for the sins of His people. God raised Him from the dead, validating His work on the cross. He said, “It is finished!” God said, “I am satisfied,” raised Him, and He ascended to eternal glory, sat down at the right hand of God to intercede for His people and bring them all into eternal glory spiritually and in resurrected form.

The resurrection then is the greatest event in history – in redemptive history, or in history period. It is the most significant expression of the power of God on behalf of believers. It is the cornerstone of gospel promise. We are saved to be raised from the dead, and into heaven we go forever in that resurrected form. The purpose of salvation, again, is a resurrected people.

Because Christ conquered death, because He conquered sin, we will be raised to dwell with Him forever. How important is this? Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

The Passover Sabbath had ended, and Mary Magdalene went to our Lord’s tomb in the darkness just before dawn the next morning (Sunday), only to find that the stone had been removed from the tomb (verse 1).

Matthew Henry says:

This was the first Christian sabbath, and she begins it accordingly with enquiries after Christ.

MacArthur ties together other Gospel accounts to put a timeline in place:

… it was John who said “it was still dark” when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. What that tells us, and what we know to be true from the other writers, is that she was the first one there; she was the first one there. Dawn happens fairly rapidly; but when she came, being the first one, it was still on the dark side of dawn.

Now she didn’t start out alone. According to Matthew 27 another Mary, Mary the mother of James and Joses, was with her; so she wasn’t alone. But she got there first. She’s in a hurry to get there, and she gets there before the other Mary. Matthew tells us in Matthew 28:1 both Marys headed for the tomb. But now we know Mary Magdalene got there first.

Now there were even other women who were coming along as well. There were women at the foot of the cross. The same women who were at the foot of the cross were there on Friday when Joseph and Nicodemus were burying the body of Jesus. It says in Luke 23:55, “The women who had come with the Lord out of Galilee saw the tomb and where the body was laid.”

Shocked by the sight of an empty tomb, she ran to tell Peter and John that someone had taken the body of Jesus (verse 2).

The two Apostles set out to see for themselves (verse 3). As John was younger than Peter, he outran him and reached the tomb first (verse 4).

John saw the burial linens from outside the tomb (verse 5), but Peter entered the tomb for a closer look (verse 6). He also saw the linen wrapping that had been placed on our Lord’s head, which was rolled up and set to one side (verse 7).

Henry says it is very unlikely that, as according to doubters, someone had stolen the body of Jesus, since His burial linens were still in the tomb:

Robbers of tombs have been known to take away the clothes and leave the body but none [prior to the practices of modern resurrectionists] ever took away the body and left the clothes, especially when it was fine linen and new, Mark 15:46. Any one would rather choose to carry a dead body in its clothes than naked. Or, if those that were supposed to have stolen it would have left the grave-clothes behind, yet it cannot be supposed they should find leisure to fold up the linen.

MacArthur adds:

Now none of these people know what’s happened on Saturday. They don’t know that the Sanhedrin got a Roman guard to guard the tomb, and then put a Roman seal on the stone so that no one would come to fake a resurrection. They put a seal, a Roman seal, which meant that it would become a crime, a violent crime, if you broke the Roman seal; and they put a significant amount of Roman soldiers there. They don’t know that.

They also don’t know that in the deep, dark night of Sunday, God sent a very localized earthquake. But before He sent the earthquake, He put all those soldiers under some kind of divine anesthesia, and they all went to sleep. And then came an earthquake, and with the earthquake the stone was rolled away. Matthew 28, verses 1-4 describes it.

The soldiers didn’t know what happened. The soldiers fled the tomb. Why not? They checked it. He’s gone. They can’t figure out why they went to sleep, because they were professional soldiers, and that was a violation of duty that had severe repercussions. They don’t know where the earthquake came from. They don’t know how the stone was rolled away. They don’t know why the body isn’t there, but it’s not. So there’s no reason to stay, so they leave.

We know they’re gone, because Mary Magdalene never refers to them when she gets there. The other women never refer to them when they get there. Peter and John never refer to them when they get there. They’re gone, startled awake in the deep Sunday darkness, shaken by the earthquake out of their divinely-induced comas.

As Peter had the temerity to enter the tomb, John followed his example. Being in the tomb, ‘he believed’ (verse 8).

John admitted that none of them understood the import of Scripture and Jesus’s own teachings: that He must rise from the dead (verse 9).

Therefore, that is further proof none of the disciples expected the Resurrection. MacArthur says:

The point that I want you to notice is that they had no expectation that Jesus would rise: the women didn’t, the leaders of the apostles didn’t.

The disciples returned home (verse 10), yet Mary Magdalene stayed and wept before bending over to look into the tomb (verse 11).

She saw two angels in white, sitting where our Lord’s body had been at rest — one at the head and one at the foot (verse 12).

They asked why she was weeping. She replied that she was concerned for Jesus: ‘they’ had taken Him away and she didn’t know where (verse 13).

It could be she was blessed by the angelic presence because she, unlike the others, stayed behind to keep a vigil over the tomb.

Henry’s commentary agrees:

This favour was shown to those who were early and constant in their enquiries after Christ, and was the reward of those that came first and staid last, but denied to those that made a transient visit.

MacArthur tells us part of the reason why Mary Magdalene was so attached to Jesus:

This woman rescued from seven demons had been in the sweet fellowship of the blessed Son of God, Son of love.

She received a further reward when she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, although she did not recognise Him (verse 14).

Jesus asked why she was weeping and for whom she was looking. She thought He was the gardener and pleaded with Him to tell her where her Saviour was so that she could take His body away (verse 15).

MacArthur says that the resurrected Jesus looked different to the Jesus that they knew during His ministry:

… by the way, every time Jesus appeared after His resurrection He had to identify Himself, because He was in a different form; He had a glorious resurrection body. And while there would have been familiar elements to that body, this was not the body that went to the cross, this was an eternal resurrection body that would never die and never be decayed. That is why on the road to Emmaus, as recorded in Luke 24, when Jesus joined those disciples on that resurrection day and walked along with them, it says, verse 16 of Luke 24, “Their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.”

Jesus called out her name and a relieved Mary, recognising His voice, replied in Hebrew, calling Him ‘teacher’ (verse 16).

Then, she touched Him in a manner of worship, a detail which John omits but which Matthew includes. MacArthur tells us:

… we know she falls at His feet, because that’s what all the women did. Matthew 28 says that when the women met Jesus they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. They just put their arms around His feet, prone in front of Him, clinging to Him, worshiping Him.

And that’s what Mary does. The shock of being more sorrowful than you’d ever been in your entire life to a moment of the most exhilarating explosive joy ever comprehended, the transition is to profound, and the one thought she has in her mind is, “I don’t want to lose Him again.” And so she takes hold of His feet kind of like the Shulamite woman in Song of Solomon who said, “I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go.” So she holds on, not going to let Him go again. This is pure love.

Jesus corrected her and said she must not do that because He had to ascend to the Father — therefore, He could not stay with her and the disciples. He then sends her on a beautiful mission (verse 17). He tells her to give the disciples — ‘my brothers’ — the news of their encounter:

and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’“

MacArthur notes our Lord’s use of the word ‘brothers’:

That’s the first time believers have been called brothers in the gospel of John. This is new. “We are called” – as the disciples were – “friends, slaves, but never brothers. This is a first. How did we become brothers who were once friends and once slaves? How did we become brothers?” The cross made us brothers. The cross made it possible for us to become the children of God, brothers and sisters.

Hebrews 2:9 says that “Jesus suffered death, suffered death, so that He could bring His own to glory because He’s not ashamed to call them brothers.” This stretches any kind of thought in Judaism. To say that you are a son of God individually is to claim to have the divine nature, and it’s blasphemous. To say you are the brother or sister of deity would be equally blasphemous, but it’s the truth. By His work on the cross we have been placed in Christ, in His death, in His burial, in His resurrection. We are in Him everlastingly. We are now His brothers, and He is not ashamed to call us brother.

We can be sure she must have set off like lightning to tell them her story, which she did (verse 18). Unfortunately, the disciples dampened her joy, as MacArthur reminds us:

Luke 24: “The women came telling these things to the apostles.” Eventually the other women showed up. “They’re talking to the apostles,” – Luke 24:10 – “but these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.”

They did not believe in a resurrection. They didn’t even believe when somebody they knew well said, “I have seen the Lord.” But their turn’s coming later that night.

The lesson to be learned from this reading is that spiritual endurance and love of Christ is rewarded. We might not see angels or the Lord Himself in this life, but we will have assurance in our faith that Jesus and God the Father have a very special love for every believer who stays the course, who puts the Triune God above all things.

May all my readers enjoy a very happy and blessed Easter.