John 20:1-10 The first day of the week comes Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, to the sepulcher… You may wonder what interest or significance there could be in these objects, and how they could possibly affect John so. You see such common-place trifles every day. But — I. Looked at in its connection, we have in this descriptive note some of those "UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES," and delicate, obscure hints of information, which marvellously enhance the interest and confirm the truth of the Gospel story. Forgers would never have thought of such a circumstance. Jesus not being in the grave, there could be only one of two explanations of this. 1. The sight of the sepulchral draperies, and the face cloth — the first, carefully folded; the second, put carefully away by itself — effectually set at rest the suspicion that evil hands had "taken away the Lord." Robbers do not set things right before they leave; but scatter confusion, out they go. 2. It being certain that no robber had done this work, it was equally certain that Jesus Himself must have done it, and this was all the more confirmed by the calmness, love of order, methodical attention to little things, displayed, which were all in the style of Jesus, and tokens which the witness recognized as surely as we recognize the handwriting of a friend. II. Notice the connection between THE DELIBERATE, ORDERLY HABITS OF JESUS, and the conviction wrought in the mind of one who knew those habits well. Such habits, besides being necessary to Him as a perfect Man, belonged to the Jewish characteristics of His human nature. 1. What were they? The race endowment of the Greeks was an instinctive consciousness of beauty and symmetry in thought and form; the national quality of the Romans, methodical force; the Jewish national peculiarity was statical order. (1) The remarkable tribal, ritual, marching order that shows itself in the story of the Exodus, in the settlement in Canaan, in the Temple, in the return from captivity, &c., could only have been possible in a people with whom order was the native instinct and habitude. (2) This habitude made the people such divinely fitted custodians of the Scriptures; and while the text of the Septuagint is so unsettled that it is impossible to place in it more than a general confidence, the Hebrew Scriptures are so correct that they present only a comparatively small variety of lections. (3) This faculty was always the mark of a great leader; we see it in Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel. 2. Mark how it was exemplified in Jesus. You see it in His instructions to the twelve apostles and the seventy disciples; in the plan of His journeys; in the development of His doctrine; in the arrangements for the feeding of four or five thousand men, besides women and children. A plan was wanted all at once for marshalling the people in companies; for making them all sit in line, with clear passages. All was done with infinite ease; and then came a methodical care in the distribution of the food; a methodical plan to prevent waste — and all this by way of methodical attention to little things; the fragments were carefully gathered up, and twelve baskets were filled. Even on the cross the love of order was seen. He could arrange for the comfort of Mary; could remember the last one prophecy about Himself that had to be fulfilled before He died, and know the point when He could utter the triumphant cry, It is finished! III. Now we come with awe to mark THIS CROWNING INSTANCE OF JEWISH ATTENTION TO FITNESS AND ORDER. Jesus, in the act of conquering death, and in the last moment of the transaction that saves millions of everlasting lives, stops to smooth the shroud, and to put the napkin carefully away into its right place, before He leaves the house of death. A striking instance this of particularity in order, and of attention to "the littles"! Before John noticed how the linen clothes lay, the sight seems to have had no effect upon him; but when, as the result of close observation, he saw how they had been placed, he knew that Jesus had done this; and that, just like Himself, minutely observant, grandly deliberative, divinely serene, He had risen from the grave. IV. IT WAS, AND IS, FULL OF INTEREST AS A REVELATION OF THE SAVIOUR HIMSELF. A symbol, through which He now teaches how carefully He counts, watches, manipulates and rectifies all things with which He has to do as the risen Saviour. He has the care of the Church, and is my own personal Saviour. This act reminds me that such a Saviour exactly meets my wants. Events are often in a tangle, and I cannot set them in order; my life is not made up of sublimities, but of little things. As the result of many things, each small and mean, I find myself bereft of spiritual sensitiveness and vivacity, and I am only half awake to the grandest of all realities; so, through a confusion of trifles I am brought into a mood that lays me open to some great temptation; and the smallest detail in my affairs will not be too small for Him to think of if I forget, nor to put in its right place, if this should be more than I can do. (C. Stanford, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. |
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