What Did John See That Made Him Believe?
We are continuing to meditate on the resurrection of Christ. Yesterday, we thought upon the disciples John and Peter running to the tomb after hearing Mary Magdalene's testimony that the stone was rolled away from the tomb. She thought the body of her Lord had been stolen. When John looked into the tomb, we don't know what he saw, but "he saw and believed" (John 20:8). What did John see? Some believe that the Shroud of Turin, a one-piece cloth about fourteen feet long is the burial cloth of Jesus, but the evidence stacks up against it. There are two images on the fabric, one of the front of a person, and one of the rear. The heads of the image meet in the middle, and some have noted that there should be a space between the heads if the cloth was under the body and then laid above. It is also estimated that the head is 5% too large and the nose is disproportionate and the arms too long. Most skeptics believe the shroud to be a painting and a religious hoax. Here's what author Josh McDowell says:
The Shroud has been known to have been around since 1354 and was tested in 1978 and thought to have been the real deal due to having no sign of paint or dye on it. However, in 1988, three independent laboratories made carbon-dating tests of threads of the Shroud. They all gave it a late medieval date. Proponents of the Shroud objected that the sample was too fragmentary and was from a contaminated section of the Shroud that reflected a medieval church fire.[1]
If it was just one piece of white linen, then what did John see that made him believe? All he was told was that somebody stole the body; they had run as quickly as they could. John emphasized the head covering folded away from the strips of cloth. Was he trying to describe the head covering folded in on itself after the Lord passed out of the strips of fabric? Henry Latham, in his book The Risen Master, had this to say about the grave clothes: "There lie the clothes—they are fallen a little together but are still wrapped fold over fold, and no grain of spice is displaced. The napkin, too, is lying on the low step which serves as a pillow for the head of the corpse; it is twisted into a sort of wig, and is all by itself."[2]
I think it is possible that when John looked inside the tomb, he saw the cocoon of the burial cloths wrapped around where the body had been, with the seventy-five pounds of sticky spices still contained in the burial cloths, the spices that Nicodemus had brought (John 19:39). If any of us had also seen, we also would have believed. No one could have stolen Christ's body out of the cocoon of wrappings without disturbing the spices. This is what John saw and believed.
How about you, dear friend, have you seen and believed yet? How much evidence do you need before you bow the knee to our lovely Savior, the Lord Jesus? His kindness and grace know no bounds. He was resurrected from the dead so that you also may believe and know that His sacrificial death was for you and as you. "But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12)
Keith
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