John 20:10

John 20:10

Christ Not in the Sepulchre

I. The two disciples went away believing, because they found that Christ was not in the sepulchre. But Mary Magdalene came and told them that she had seen Him risen, and had heard His voice with her ears. What she told Peter and John, Peter and John are now telling to us. They tell us that they have heard Him, that they have seen Him with their eyes, have looked upon Him, yea, that their hands have handled Him. We may trust their testimony, as they trusted hers, being quite ready indeed to believe that He was alive, because they had found that He was not amongst the dead. And so we, finding that He is not amongst the dead, seeing and knowing the fruits of His gospel, the living and ever increasing fruits of it, may well believe that its Author is risen, and that the pains of death were loosed from off Him, because it was not possible that He should be holden by them. In this way we, like the two disciples, may be all said to be witnesses of Christ's resurrection.

II. But this is now past, as with the two disciples, and we are going again to our own homes. There, neither the empty sepulchre nor the risen Saviour are present before us, but common scenes and familiar occupations, which in themselves have nothing in them of Christ. May we not hope that Christ and Christ's Spirit will visit us the while in these our daily callings, as He came to His disciples Peter and John when following their business as fishers on the Lake of Gennesareth? How can we get Him to visit us? There is one answer by prayer and by watchfulness. All of us have in truth one great call yet before us; and with respect to that we are all preparing still. And for that great call, common to all of us, we need all the same common readiness; and that readiness will be effected in us only by the same means, if now, before it come, Christ and Christ's Spirit shall, in our homes and daily callings, be persuaded to visit us.

T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 190.

Reference: John 20:10; John 20:11. J. Key, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 211.