John 20:6,7

THE TESTIMONY OF THE GRAVE-CLOTHES

‘He beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.

John 20:6 (R.V.)

The two Apostles went in great haste to the tomb, on the startling report of Mary Magdalene that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, and, as her fears at once suggested to her, that the holy body had been borne away, whither she knew not. The Apostles run with anxious speed to the tomb. The younger man arrives there first, finds the stone removed, and, as the carefully-chosen Greek word seems to imply, merely looks in, and sees that the linen cloths were plainly lying unremoved. St. Peter soon comes up, and with characteristic impetuosity enters the tomb, and—as we are reminded by the change in the Greek verb and in the order of the words—beholds, or gazes on, the linen cloths as they were lying before him.

I. St. Peter arrives at the conviction that the holy body had not been borne away, but, in some inexplicable manner, had left the linen cloths, and also left the napkin that had been placed on the sacred head still folded, but lying apart—it may be on the ledge whereon the head may have rested during the hours of interment. John now enters the tomb, and not only arrived at the same conviction as St. Peter, but believed, namely, that what they beheld (the linen cloths and the enfolded napkin) bore silent testimony to that of which their Lord had spoken to them, but which they had never rightly understood or realised, the rising again from the dead.

II. What was the exact appearance of the grave-clothes on which the gaze of the Apostles had anxiously rested?—Two opinions there are, one of which may perhaps be regarded as the general opinion entertained by those who have dwelt reverently upon the details which John has been moved to record of the tomb, and of what it contained. And the opinion is this, that the two holy angels whom Mary Magdalene had been permitted to behold, sitting one at the head and one at the feet where the holy body of the Lord had lain, that these two holy watchers had the blessed privilege of ministering to their Lord when His spirit re-entered His crucified body, and that it is to their ministry that we must attribute the carefully ordered position of the things within the tomb, as they were seen and noted by the two Apostles. Such, very distinctly, was the opinion of the thoughtful and spiritual expositor Bengel, one of the very few interpreters who have noticed the matter at all. Such also was my own opinion till quite recently. But the publication a year or two ago of a singularly persuasive and carefully thought-out volume, entitled The Risen Master, written by Dr. Latham, then Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, has led me to reconsider the whole profoundly interesting question. This reconsideration has led me to give up my former opinion, always felt by me to involve difficulty in its prosaic homeliness, and to accept the more lofty and in many respects more suggestive view entertained by Dr. Latham, viz., that all things remained in the tomb just as they had been placed in it by the pious hands of Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus until the mysterious moment of the return of the Lord’s spirit to the body from which it had been parted on the Cross. When that return took place it seemed clear to me that the holy body would at once be endued with new powers and properties, and that the opinion that the holy body passed of itself out of its surroundings could be fully justified. Under such a conception the linen cloths and swathing bands would remain unremoved and unchanged, save that their form would indicate that a body had been within them, which now had been withdrawn, and had left only the trace of its former presence, the napkin, which before had been with them, being now separated from them and put apart in a place by itself. It was on this strange but self-revealing appearance that the gaze of St. Peter rested so earnestly. It was seen (another verb here is used) by the other Apostle, and at a glance all became clear; memories of what their dear Lord had said to them on the Mount of the Transfiguration came back to his mind, and he realised that what he was looking on was the silent outward witness to the Lord’s Resurrection from the dead.

III. But this suggestive mystery was not designed simply to reassure the Apostles or those to whom the declarations of the holy women had seemed to be but idle tales; it was designed for all who, when the strange tidings had spread through Jerusalem and its Passover multitudes, doubtless went up to see with their own eyes the spot of which such wonders were told. And that the story had spread we have the testimony of the two that were journeying to Emmaus, who marvelled that one apparently coming from Jerusalem should not have heard of these things.

Joseph of Arimathæa’s tomb I cannot doubt was visited by many, and I cannot also doubt that this silent witness of the Resurrection created in many and many a heart a kind of persuasion, which, when the great address of St. Peter at Pentecost was heard by them, deepened into belief and conviction.

We may here close our meditations on what we may rightly term the testimony of the opened tomb to the reality of the Lord’s Resurrection.

—Bishop Ellicott.