Early Sunday morning Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, along with Salome, Joanna, and other women, bring spices to the tomb to treat Jesus’ body. En route they say to one another: “Who will roll the stone away from the door of the memorial tomb for us?” But on arriving, they find that an earthquake has occurred and Jehovah’s angel has rolled the stone away. The guards are gone, and the tomb is empty! Matthew 27:57–28:2; Mark 15:42–16:4; Luke 23:50–24:3, 10; John 19:14, Joh 19:31–20:1; Joh 12:42; Leviticus 23:5-7; Deuteronomy 21:22, 23; Psalm 34:20; Zechariah 12:10.

Chapter 128

Jesus Is Alive!

WHEN the women find Jesus’ tomb empty, Mary Magdalene runs off to tell Peter and John. However, the other women evidently remain at the tomb. Soon, an angel appears and invites them inside.

Here the women see yet another angel, and one of the angels says to them: “Do not you be fearful, for I know you are looking for Jesus who was impaled. He is not here, for he was raised up, as he said. Come, see the place where he was lying. And go quickly and tell his disciples that he was raised up from the dead.” So with fear and great joy, these women also run off.

By this time, Mary has found Peter and John, and she reports to them: “They have taken away the Lord out of the memorial tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Immediately the two apostles take off running. John is fleeter of foot​—evidently being younger—​and he reaches the tomb first. By this time the women have left, so no one is around. Stooping down, John peers into the tomb and sees the bandages, but he remains outside.

When Peter arrives, he does not hesitate but goes right on in. He sees the bandages lying there and also the cloth used to wrap Jesus’ head. It is rolled up in one place. John now also enters the tomb, and he believes Mary’s report. But neither Peter nor John grasps that Jesus has been raised up, even though He had often told them that He would be. Puzzled, the two return home, but Mary, who has come back to the tomb, remains.

In the meantime, the other women are hurrying to tell the disciples that Jesus has been resurrected, as the angels commanded them to do. While they are running along as fast as they can, Jesus meets them and says: “Good day!” Falling at his feet, they do obeisance to him. Then Jesus says: “Have no fear! Go, report to my brothers, that they may go off into Galilee; and there they will see me.”

Earlier, when the earthquake occurred and the angels appeared, the soldiers on guard were stunned and became as dead men. Upon recovering, they immediately went into the city and told the chief priests what had happened. After consulting with the “older men” of the Jews, the decision was made to try to hush up the matter by bribing the soldiers. They were instructed: “Say, ‘His disciples came in the night and stole him while we were sleeping.’”

Since Roman soldiers may be punished with death for falling asleep at their posts, the priests promised: “If this [report of your falling asleep] gets to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him and will set you free from worry.” Since the size of the bribe was sufficiently large, the soldiers did as they were instructed. As a result, the false report about the theft of Jesus’ body became widely spread among the Jews.

Mary Magdalene, who remains behind at the tomb, is overcome by grief. Where could Jesus be? Stooping forward to look into the tomb, she sees the two angels in white, who have reappeared! One is sitting at the head and the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been lying. “Woman, why are you weeping?” they ask.

“They have taken my Lord away,” Mary answers, “and I do not know where they have laid him.” Then she turns around and sees someone who repeats the question: “Woman, why are you weeping?” And this one also asks: “Whom are you looking for?”

Imagining this person to be the caretaker of the garden in which the tomb is situated, she says to him: “Sir, if you have carried him off, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

“Mary!” the person says. And immediately she knows, by the familiar way he speaks to her, that it is Jesus. “Rab·boʹni!” (meaning “Teacher!”) she exclaims. And with unbounded joy, she grabs hold of him. But Jesus says: “Stop clinging to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. But be on your way to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.’”

Mary now runs to where the apostles and fellow disciples have gathered. She adds her account to the report that the other women have already given about seeing the resurrected Jesus. Yet, these men, who did not believe the first women, apparently do not believe Mary either. Matthew 28:3-15; Mark 16:5-8; Luke 24:4-12; John 20:2-18.

▪ After finding the tomb empty, what does Mary Magdalene do, and what experience do the other women have?

▪ How do Peter and John react at finding the tomb empty?

▪ What do the other women encounter on their way to report Jesus’ resurrection to the disciples?

▪ What had happened to the soldier guard, and what was the response to their report to the priests?

▪ What happens when Mary Magdalene is alone at the tomb, and what is the response of the disciples to the reports of the women?

THE disciples are still downhearted. They do not comprehend the significance of the empty tomb, nor do they believe the reports of the women. So later on Sunday, Cleopas and another disciple leave Jerusalem for Emmaus, a distance of about seven miles [11 km].

En route, while they are discussing the events of the day, a stranger joins them. “What are these matters that you are debating between yourselves as you walk along?” he asks.

The disciples stop, their faces downcast, and Cleopas replies: “Are you dwelling as an alien by yourself in Jerusalem and so do not know the things that have occurred in her in these days?” He asks: “What things?”

“The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene,” they answer. “Our chief priests and rulers handed him over to the sentence of death and impaled him. But we were hoping that this man was the one destined to deliver Israel.”

Cleopas and his companion explain the astounding events of the day​—the report about the supernatural sight of angels and the empty tomb—​but then confess their bewilderment regarding the meaning of these things. The stranger reprimands them: “O senseless ones and slow in heart to believe on all the things the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” He then interprets for them passages from the sacred text that pertain to the Christ.

Finally they arrive near Emmaus, and the stranger makes as if he is going on. Wanting to hear more, the disciples urge: “Stay with us, because it is toward evening.” So he stays for a meal. As he says a prayer and breaks bread and hands it to them, they recognize that he is really Jesus in a materialized human body. But then he disappears.

Now they understand how the stranger knew so much! “Were not our hearts burning,” they ask, “as he was speaking to us on the road, as he was fully opening up the Scriptures to us?” Without delay, they get up and hurry all the way back to Jerusalem, where they find the apostles and those assembled with them. Before Cleopas and his companion can say a thing, the others excitedly report: “For a fact the Lord was raised up and he appeared to Simon!” Then the two relate how Jesus also appeared to them. This makes four times during the day that he has appeared to different ones of his disciples.

Jesus suddenly makes a fifth appearance. Even though the doors are locked because the disciples are in fear of the Jews, he enters, standing right in their midst, and says: “May you have peace.” They are terrified, imagining that they are seeing a spirit. So, explaining that he is not an apparition, Jesus says: “Why are you troubled, and why is it doubts come up in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; feel me and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones just as you behold that I have.” Still, they are reluctant to believe.

To help them grasp that he really is Jesus, he asks: “Do you have something there to eat?” After accepting a piece of broiled fish and eating it, he says: “These are my words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you [before my death], that all the things written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms about me must be fulfilled.”

Continuing what, in effect, amounts to a Bible study with them, Jesus teaches: “In this way it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from among the dead on the third day, and on the basis of his name repentance for forgiveness of sins would be preached in all the nations​—starting out from Jerusalem, you are to be witnesses of these things.”