Reading the Gospels Together

The Resurrection – Part 6

As we turn to John’s gospel we find many similarities to the synoptic gospels and some differences. Like the synoptic gospels John tells his readers that it is a woman who is the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus and the first evangelist to proclaim the good news. All four gospel writers tell their readers that it is Mary Magdalene who is that first witness. She is the only woman John names. Mark, Matthew and Luke said other women were with her. The witness of a woman was not dependable at the time when the gospels were written. But the gospel writers nonetheless tell us that the first witness(s) were women. We should not doubt that this was historically true – no thinking author would have made such a thing up! That at least Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found it empty is virtually indisputable.

Having noted this important similarity we do need to recognize that John’s story is significantly different from the synoptic writer’s story. Since in John’s gospel Jesus did receive a proper burial by Joseph or Arimathea and Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene did not come to the tomb with spices and her purpose was not to anoint the dead body of Jesus (Mark and Luke) but likely to grieve (Matthew). John does not tell his readers how the stone was rolled away – in fact John had not even mentioned a stone during the burial. Only Matthew tells the story of the earthquake and the angel coming to remove the stone. So, John joins Mark and Luke in reporting that the stone was already removed by the time Mary Magdalene arrives. John does not tell us that Mary Magdalene entered the tomb or that she encounters anyone when she first arrived but it is clear that she believes the tomb is empty. Her immediate reaction is to think that someone has stolen the dead body of Jesus. In her sorrow Mary Magdalene runs to tell Peter and the others what she has discovered. Peter and the beloved disciple run immediately to the tomb to verify Mary’s testimony. The beloved disciple has become an important character in John’s gospel and so John tells the story of how that disciple outran Peter and arrived first but he defers to Peter to enter the tomb first. As they enter the tomb they see only the linen wrappings lying where the body had been placed and that the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was rolled up in a place by itself. John first indicates that the beloved disciple saw this and believed but then he undermines that report by saying that they did not understand the scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead. The implication is that Peter does not yet believe. Peter and the beloved disciple return to their homes. Luke had reported that when the women came to report their finding to the disciples Peter had ran to the tomb and found that it was in fact empty but they he is only amazed and not believing. In John’s gospel Mary Magdalene is left alone at the tomb. She decides to look inside and discovers that now there are two angels in white sitting inside. They ask her why she is weeping. Mary either does not realize they are angels or is not impressed by them. She replies by repeating her assumption that someone has stolen the body of Jesus and then turns apparently to leave. She encounters Jesus but does not recognize him – much like the Emmaus travelers do not recognize Jesus at first. Jesus asks her why she is weeping and asks her who she is looking for. Readers of John’s gospel may remember Jesus’ very first words in John’s gospel when he asks the disciples of John what they are looking for. For the third time Mary repeats her assumption that someone has stolen the body and asks Jesus if he has taken the body and if he has to return it to her. Then Jesus speaks her name and Mary Magdalene realizes that this is Jesus! John provides his readers with a rather ambiguous and confusing bit of information at this point. Jesus tells Mary not to hold on to him because he has not yet ascended to the Father. What this means escapes most interpreters. Jesus will appear soon to the disciples and there is no mention of this at that time – in fact a week later Thomas will be invited to touch Jesus hands and feet. John’s first empty tomb/bodily resurrection appearance concludes with Mary going to the disciples and announcing to them that she has seen the Lord. John does not record their reaction. We may recall that Matthew had also told his readers that the women encounter the risen Jesus as they leave the tomb. Matthew and John agree about that.

John now tells his readers a second bodily resurrection appearance of Jesus – it is a story John shares with Luke so we have heard Luke’s version of it already. It is evening on the first day of the week after Jesus’ resurrection. John tells his readers that the disciples are gathered behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. Just as in Luke’s version of this story Jesus suddenly appears in their midst – the locked doors serves both to identify the disciples’ fear and to let the reader know of Jesus’ ability to pass through locked doors – his resurrected body has a quality that ordinary bodies do not possess. Luke and John agree on this. Inside the room, John does not tell the story in the same way that Luke had. There is no mention of seeing a ghost or of the need for Jesus to invite them to touch his hands and feet or to give him fish to eat. Instead Jesus offers a word of peace to his disciples and bestows on them the Holy Spirit. Jesus does this by breathing on them which likely alludes to God breathing the breath of life into Adam in the Genesis story. Luke also tells his readers of the coming Holy Spirit but his story is very different from John’s. We have seen how all of the gospels deal with the absence and yet continuing presence of the risen Jesus in the time following the resurrection.

Readers of John’s gospel soon discover that a problem has arisen following the resurrection appearance of Jesus on the evening of the first day of the week. One of the disciples, Thomas, was not present. Even though the other disciples tell him that they have seen the Lord, Thomas does not believe. Their witness fails. We have seen how the witness of the women in Luke’s gospel also ends in failure. Witnessing is challenging and believing is not easy! How true that remains for us, too. So John tells his readers a third resurrection appearance story. A week has passed and once again the disciples are gathered together in a room where the door is shut. This time Thomas is with them. And John tells his readers that once again Jesus suddenly appears in their midst. John has not mentioned that the doors were locked so this time the mention of the doors being shut is meant to indicate the unusualness of Jesus ability to appear in their midst without passing through an open door. Like Luke, John understands the nature of the resurrected body of Jesus to be like the body of Jesus before his death yet different – it is the same body yet a resurrected body. Once again Jesus offers his disciples the gift of peace and then invites Thomas to place his finger in the nail prints and his hand in Jesus’ side. Jesus also invites Thomas to believe. Thomas does not touch Jesus. Without touching Jesus he makes the most powerful confession in the NT – “My Lord and my God!” A question often arises about whether or not the early Christians understood Jesus to somehow be God. At this point John certainly does – in fact we have seen from the beginning that John has thought of Jesus as the God-man. The early Christians likely did not have all the nuances that have entered into later theology evolving into the Christian idea of the Trinity. But it does seem clear from passages like this and from some of the words of Paul and the other gospel writers that they did understand Jesus to be something greater than human. They only came to that understanding after the resurrection. They were driven to such thinking as they reflected on their experience of what had happened. Thomas is reminded that he believed only after seeing. Jesus speaks a word to all those who believe in the intervening years since the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection praising them as those who have not seen and yet believe. We are numbered with those believers.

Incidentally, it is likely significant that John places these two resurrection appearance stories on consecutive Sundays. Already at John’s time it is likely that Christians were moving to worship on the first day of the week – Sunday – instead of the Sabbath.

At this point John’s gospel comes to an end. Just as Luke had provided his readers with a statement of his purpose in writing at the very beginning of his gospel, John provides his readers with the purpose of his gospel at that end. John tells us some significant things in these two short verses. First of all he tells us that he has not told us everything he knows – there are many other signs that Jesus did. John tells us that he has selected the ones he has told us with the hope that we might come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we might have life in his name. Actually there is another way to hear what John is saying at this point. It is equally correct to understand that John is telling his readers that he has written his gospel so that they might continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that by continuing to believe they might have life. Understanding the sentence in the first way implies that John wants to bring unbelievers to belief. Understanding the sentence in the second way implies that John is writing to people who already believe and that his purpose is to help and encourage them to keep on believing. Both are true and worthy purposes for John’s gospel. An important thing to hear in this statement of John is that the gospel writers like him are not much interested in providing factual information about Jesus – of acting like a court reporter providing the facts. What they are interested in is engaging their readers in such a way that faith is formed. It’s not just knowing about Jesus or even having the story straight but it is about believing in Jesus and trusting in him. All of the gospel writers share this motive and thus that arrange and present their gospels not to record history or biography but to proclaim – to evangelize. We do them all a disservice when we judge them with historical accuracy. The truth likely is that no one knows what “really happened” and that is not very important after all. The proclamation is.