Proof In The Empty Tomb

An empty tomb is one thing. An empty tomb with grave cloths left behind and a head covering folded neatly in place is another. We open John 20 and follow the morning that turns panic into belief, starting with Mary Magdalene arriving in the dark, seeing the stone rolled away, and assuming the worst. That jump to “they took Him” feels modern because we do it all the time when we only have a few facts and a lot of fear. 

From there we track Peter and John racing to the tomb, and we slow down on what they actually see. The burial linen cloths, the order of the scene, and John’s moment of realization become a practical lesson in how faith often works: we notice, we investigate, and then we finally perceive. Pastor Carl unpacks the three different “saw” words in the passage and ties them to spiritual growth, Bible study, and the simple idea that when you cannot hear God, you can read God because God speaks through Scripture. 

The message then widens into the bigger story of redemption with Passover, the Day of Atonement, the mercy seat, and Hebrews 9. Jesus is our Passover Lamb, our scapegoat, and our Great High Priest who offers His own blood once for all, and the resurrection is God’s declaration that the sacrifice is accepted and forgiveness is real. 

If you want a clearer, evidence grounded look at the resurrection and why it matters for everyday faith, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the detail that impacted you most.

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. And so we see by reading the Word of God. The Word of God comes alive as we get into it. But we can't see and then perceive and then believe unless we get into the Word and let it change us from the inside out. I just thought that was neat. I heard some other teachers bring that up, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

We should never underestimate the power of simply using the senses God gave us to understand the blessings He has for us. For most of us, God gave us the ability to hear and see. And those senses have the power to consume God's word. In today's message, Pastor Carl will encourage you that maybe when you can't hear God, try reading God. Read his word. God speaks through the Bible. Whether you're hearing it taught or reading it for yourself, God will change and challenge you through that. And now here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Well, let's get into a study of God's Word. We are in the book of John, and we'll be in John chapter 20. John chapter 20. In chapter 19, of course, was the crucifixion, and the chapter wrapped up in kind of a rush where Joseph of Arimathea and uh Nicodemus both approached Pilate and said, Could we have the body of Jesus? It's already dead. Um and he said, Sure. And they brought the, they took down the body, they they they wrapped him in in uh linen cloths and and put some spices on him to prepare him for burial, and quickly got him to Joseph's tomb. No, yeah, Joseph of Arimathea, his tomb that he had just had made, and he allowed the Lord to be laid there before the sun went down, and the rock was put over the entrance of the tomb and it was sealed up. And that's what brings us to chapter 20. So, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Now you remember why they rushed to get him into the tomb before sundown. It's because it was Friday. It was the preparation day. Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday and goes through, you know, sundown on Saturday. Sabbath is on Saturday, and in this case it was a high Sabbath because it was a Sabbath that happened during one of the festivals. This time it happened during Passover. And so Jesus being our Passover lamb had to be put into his grave before the sun went down on Friday. Now we see it's the first day of the week, which is what we know as Sunday, the first day of the week after Sabbath, because Mary and a few other Marys would come to finish the preparation work for the body for burial, because uh the others had to rush and get it done before the sun went down. And as Mary, she came first, as she approached, she saw that the stone had been taken away from this from the tomb, and nobody was there. So she thought the body was gone. And from this uh particular verse, it doesn't look like she went in to look. She just saw it was open and and and nobody was there, so she assumed that somebody stole the body. And so in verse 2, she ran and came to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved. Who's that? John, the author of this gospel, uh, never speaks in the first person about himself, and said to them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. Isn't that interesting when something happens and we have some of the facts? We we go and they start to blame they. Who is they? I don't know who they are, but they did it. Can you relate to that? Especially over the last few years, there's been a lot of they finger pointing. Those people, they did it. Who are they? I don't know, but they're bad and they steal things. And and we need to be careful about you know who we're blaming what on. Because sometimes some of these things are true, sometimes they're not, sometimes they're partially true. Um, we need to fine-tune on who it is that we are blaming that the they are. But as far as Mary was concerned, she was just overwhelmed. The situation was not as she expected it to be, and somebody did something, and and something had to be done about it, and so she told Peter and John about it. Now Peter therefore went out and the other disciple and were going to the tomb, and they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. I just love that verse. Because John, kind of trying to be humble, is bragging about himself. I ran faster than Peter. And I don't know if he put this in him in here just to be a stab at Peter, but this is also something that shows the authenticity of this. This is a unique aspect of the story. These are the testimony, this is the testimony of John as to what he saw, what happened. The other gospels are testimonies of other folks that saw what happened. And one, Luke reports on what he interviewed, all these people of happening. Um, they didn't all have the same thing to say. If it was a made-up story, then they would go to the meeting and say, okay, when people ask you this, this is what you say. And that's not what happened. Each of them had a personal testimony of what happened here. And for John, this reflects the fact that John was the youngest disciple and Peter was the oldest disciple, which would fit the narrative because John could run faster than Peter, right? But Peter wanted to get there because in the next verse, you see, and he stooping down and looking in, saw the linen claws lying there, yet did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb, and he saw the linen claws lying there and the handkerchief that had been around his head, not laying on the lithium linen claws, but folded together in a place by itself. Well, there's a lot that we need to go through there. But so Peter, when he gets to the tomb, he goes right in. When John came to the tomb, he stopped. John got to the tomb first, but Peter went in first. John was the type of guy that contemplated what was going on. What is going on here? What am I looking at? I'm not sure I want to go in yet, but Simon Peter is always the guy who just goes and acts before he thinks. Some people have described Peter as ready, shoot, aim. Have you heard that before? That's Peter. He just goes, he's just full of, he doesn't think about it until after the fact. He had the foot and mouth disease, you know. But Simon Peter, he went in and John watched what was going on. And you see what Simon Peter saw? He saw the linen claws lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around his head, not lying with the linen claws, but folded together in a place by itself. Let me ask you if you're a detective and hearing this account, does this sound like a body that's been stolen? If somebody went in to steal the body of Jesus for whatever reason they want to steal the body of Jesus, to prove that he didn't rise again for the dead, or whatever the reasons they thought that the Romans were going to, because that's probably the they, right? The Romans. They stole the body. Could have been the religious leaders that stole the body. Truth is nobody stole the body. Because if somebody steals the body, what would be left behind? Maybe a fragment of a piece of a of the linen that ripped by accident when they pulled him away. They're not going to unwrap the body and take him away and leave the linens there, are they? They're going to take him with the linens and go. And it's interesting too, this is the process that they used is similar to mummification of a body. And some of these claws get a little stiff, so they're not just laying there. It's kind of like a caterpillar in a cocoon. When the butterfly comes out of that cocoon that used to be a caterpillar, the cocoon stays like a shell, right? And I would imagine that these burial claws were similar to that. It wasn't so rigid where it looked like a body was still in there, but it wasn't like totally flat either. It's like somebody just can't get out of those and leave them in that form. The other factor there was that he had a number of claws that he was wrapped with in his main body, but there was another linen piece that was put around his head called a handkerchief. And that was neatly folded at the head of the bed. Now, if you're stealing a body, do you un do you take the body out of everything and make it look like nothing's been disturbed except the body is gone, and then fold up the handkerchief and just leave it there? You wouldn't do that if you're stealing a body, right? But if you're resurrected and you have this new body that can go through doors that we'll see and go through walls, but Jesus shows up. We'll see that later on in this in this chapter. Could it be that you know in his resurrection he just came out those linen cloths and he took time? It wasn't he wasn't in a rush, he took time to fold his his handkerchief, the headpiece, and put it there so nicely for his disciples to discover. An amazing thing here. But Peter didn't know what he was looking at. Then the other disciple who came to the tomb first went in also, and he saw and believed. John, the one who is pondering and not rushing in, he was thinking about what was going on, and and something clicked inside of him. And he said, You know what? Our Lord has risen from the dead. He has not been stolen, he is risen from the dead. And he explains this in verse 9, for as yet they did not know the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. And I don't know if that means until that moment it finally clicked for John, or something preceding that clicked for John, because we have layers of faith as we grow in our relationship and our belief and our faith with the Lord. May have been that he just remembered some of the things that Jesus said, but Jesus is also taught from scriptures the fact that the Messiah would be risen from the dead. And it could be that it all came together at that moment. Some of it came together, but but but John saw not the body of Christ, but the missing body of Christ, and he believed, because Jesus said that he would rise again. And later they would understand the scriptures even more fully as Jesus would come and teach them. Then the disciples went away again to their own homes. They would gather for a period of time, but then they'd go away because they were in fear that they would be arrested by the Roman officials as well. I want to show you something. There were three uses of the word saw in this section of scripture. We had it in verse 5, and in verse 6, and in verse 8. And they're all different words with the same English translation, saw. The first word that we saw when John made it to the tomb but didn't go in, it's the Greek word that says blepo, which is to look at, simply to see. He catches something that's happening, but he has made no conclusions about it or anything. The second word, when Peter went into the tomb and John would follow, the word used there was the ro, which is like theory, which is you start thinking about what you're seeing, to be a spectator, to start discerning what is going on, what is really happening in this scene. And then you had a third word that is used at the end when John believed ideal, which sounds a lot like idea, is this is to know, to get knowledge of, to understand, to perceive, to have your life changed by it, which is a great example of what has to happen in our lives for us to understand and receive Jesus into our hearts. First, we need to see some facts. We need to be made aware that we are sinners and we're in need of a savior. And sometimes that leaves you, you know, discouraged because, well, if that is true, I'm a sinner and there's no hope for me, there's no hope for me. But then you go to the next step when you start realizing, but God sent his own son in the fullness of time to become a perpetuation for our sin, that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. And you start pondering, oh, could that be an answer to my need for a savior? And then you move to that third saw where you grasp a hold of it yourself and you say, Jesus died for me. He loved me so much that he laid down his life that if I would believe in him, I would have everlasting life. You know, Lord, I do believe. Forgive me, Lord. Change me, come and live inside of me. I believe you, Lord. And you said, if I believe you, I will have eternal life. And our lives are changed as a result. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. It's so we we see by reading the word of God. The word of God comes alive as we get into it. But we can't see and then perceive and then believe unless we get into the word and let it change us from the inside out. I just thought that was neat. I heard some other teachers bring that up, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So there's three kinds of seeing. I hope that we've all arrived at the third. Then verse 11 said, But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she stepped down into the tomb, stooped down. The door to the tomb was probably pretty short, maybe three or four feet, so you can get in there. So you have to stoop to get in. But as Peter and John went back to the other disciples, Mary had followed them back, but she stayed behind, and then she went in to look at the tomb as well. And when she stooped down and looked in the tomb, she saw two angels in white sitting at one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. How interesting. And we'll see in the next few verses that uh her reaction wasn't of fear, but which she was still just in angst that somebody had stolen the body. And and maybe these people have some answers for her. But where else in the Bible do you see two angels sitting at one end and the other? Let me give you a hint. It's on the Ark of the Covenant. Now that brings up another aspect of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Not only was he our Passover lamb that takes away the sin of the world, but he was also our scapegoat and the sacrificial goat that was represented on the Day of Atonement. Another uh festival that that happened a few months later in the year. And if you remember what happens there, um two things happen. One, uh the the high priest would would uh have two goats, and one they would place the sin upon and and lead that lamb out of the city. It would be the scapegoat, right? And I encourage you to go and study this deeper because there's a lot of good significance in it. The other goat was slaughtered, and the blood of that lamb would be taken into the tabernacle or the temple, into the Holy of Holies, where you find this Ark of the Covenant. This is the box that contained the Ten Commandments, it contained Aaron's rod that budded, and it also contained some manna bread in it. And in between, where the angels are facing each other and their wings are almost touching, in the middle there is what's called the mercy seat. And that's where the high priest would come and sprinkle the blood of the sacrificed lamb in there once a year. Now, something else that needs to be said is there was also a bull that was was sacrificed on behalf of the high priest so that he would be clean to enter into the Holy of Holies. And as soon as they were doing this, they they they began a tradition where they would tie uh the high priest's leg with a rope and bells on it because you're meeting with the presence of God. And if you're not clean, if the priest was not clean and he had sinned that was not atoned for, he would die in the presence of God, and they would stop hearing the bell ring, and nobody else can go in the Holy of Holies, so they just pull him out with a rope. Right? And if that happened, then the the sprinkling of blood on the mercy seat would not be accepted, and there would not be forgiveness for Israel for that year. But I don't remember ever hearing an account of that happening. Most of the time that I'm aware of, the high priest would go in there, he'd do all the things right, and uh he'd apply the sprinkling of the blood, the blood to the mercy seat, and we would find mercy from the Lord, and we would find forgiveness for that year, and he would come out and he would declare, forgiven, and the crowd would go wild. Right? I think there was one example, he wasn't killed, but he lost his voice. You remember that? The father of John the Baptist, Zechariah, when he went in and he actually met with another angel that came and said, Okay, you you're gonna have a child, and he said, How's that gonna happen? And I don't know if the angel just had a bad attitude that day. He said, You don't believe me, you're not gonna talk anymore. So he went out and he could not say forgiven, even though they were. And they said, What happened to you? He saw a vision, he saw something. Well, Jesus is so much in this, he became our scapegoat. He's the one that went outside the city and he was crucified on the cross on our behalf. But he was also the one who shed his blood as the first lamb that was brought into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled on the mercy seat. In fact, Jesus himself as our high priest was the one that came and offered his blood on the Holy of Holies. But it wasn't the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem because he was on the cross and then he was in the grave. But in Hebrews chapter 9, and the whole chapter talks about this, so I encourage you to go home and dig into this a little bit more. But it says in this particular verse, verse 12, not with the blood of goats or calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place once and for all, having obtained eternal redemption. And the writer of Hebrews goes on to explain this is not the earthly temple that we're talking about. This is the real temple that's in heaven that Jesus went into and asked. The high priest offered his blood on the real Holy of Holies, on the real mercy seat, and connecting it with the high priest coming out of the Holy of Holies when Jesus rose again from the dead on the third day, on the first day of the week, symbolically, he's coming out and saying, forgiven. The sacrifice has been accepted. You are forgiven. And Paul plays off of that fact in 1 Corinthians 15, 14, when he said, And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is also empty. As a high priest, if he went into the Holy of Holies and He died and he remained dead, and he did not come out, and Paul would go on too to say, if Christ is not risen from the dead, then our faith is futile. You're wasting your time. However, the fact is Jesus did raise from the dead. Isn't that good news? So Jesus not only our Passover lamb, but he's our great high priest on the Day of Atonement that secured that forgiveness for us for eternity, to whoever would believe. And then there's another festival called the First Fruits, which He is the first born from creation. He's the first to resurrect from the dead, so that anybody who would believe after him could have a resurrection as well. We have new bodies coming. The Lord is coming back. Are you looking forward to that blessed hope when he comes to give us the fulfillment of our entire salvation, which includes a brand new body that's built to last forever.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

That's Pastor Carl on Come On Up. You know, the Gospel of John was written by one of Jesus' original disciples. He's referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved. What a sweet and intimate way to refer to the closeness and friendship that was had between John and Jesus. After all, so many of the events mentioned were witnessed firsthand by John. He was there for the transfiguration, and he was the only disciple of the twelve mentioned to be at the cross as Jesus died. He was also one of the first people to see that the grave was empty. John had an opportunity and a privilege to write about all the things that he saw and witnessed with his own eyes. He saw miracles. He was the recipient of Jesus' love and care, and he was eager for others to see and experience knowing Jesus too. That's why he wrote it all down in this wonderful book of John. Like the author, we hope that you'll take note of the ways that God has intersected your life and brought about amazing stories to tell. Write them down, share them with others, and don't be afraid to tell people about the greatest love of all, so that they can also claim that they are disciples whom Jesus loves. An easy way to share Jesus with people is by letting them know about this radio program. The Mountain Cross is a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching through the Bible. We meet on Sundays beginning at 10 a.m. To learn more, go to themountaincross.com. That's all for today. Come on up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.