Continuing the report
of the experience of these women followers of Jesus, the author reports “But
when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus” (Luke 24:3).
As has been indicated, this was completely unexpected. Again, nobody was expecting a
resurrection. A crucifixion had taken
place. Rome had won. Jesus had experienced the ultimate shaming. Now His disciples were likely to find
themselves on their own crosses. He
could not have been the messiah. There
was nothing left to do now but dress His dead body with spices, and then
sometime in the future, after His body had decomposed, come and collect the
bones and place them in an ossuary.
So naturally “they
were perplexed about this” (24:4a). Perplexed is probably an
understatement. It was then that they are
said to have heard the amazing words that “He is not here, but has been
raised!” (24:6a) Raised?
Nonsense! Along with this report
of Jesus being “raised,” the women, there simply to anoint to perform standard
burial practices, receive something of a rebuke, as they hear “Remember how He
told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered
into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise
again” (24:6b-7).
Upon their hearing
this, it is reported that “the women remembered His words” (24:8a). For the first time then, as they put together
the words that they are now being asked to remember with the words that they
were hearing, there is a belief in a Resurrection. Until that point,
there was nobody that carried any type of expectation that Jesus was going to
rise from the dead. Yes, there was a general hope in the resurrection of
the righteous at the end of the age, which would coincide with the beginning of
the messianic age when Israel’s God would reign supreme on earth, among and
through His covenant people, but the idea that a single man, and a crucified
one at that, was going to be resurrected from the dead and be set forth as the
Messiah and the embodiment of Israel’s God, was an idea that was held by very
few, if any at all.
Again, the women went
to the tomb, not expecting to find it empty, but rather to find the dead body
of Jesus. Death was well understood. Then, as now, there was a full
and complete knowledge that people, quite simply, do not return from the
dead. That is why, “when they returned from the tomb” and “told all these
things to the eleven and to all the rest… these words seemed like pure nonsense
to them, and they did not believe them” (24:9,11). Of course it was taken to be pure nonsense. Dead people stayed dead. No one was
expecting Jesus to return to life. For
all practical matters, His disciples knew that the new exodus movement that had
been begun by John the Baptist and taken up by Jesus, was over.
However, while most
likely still considering these words to be nonsense, Peter is reported to have
“got up and ran to the tomb” (24:12a). Apparently this was something that
he had to see for himself. Naturally, he found the tomb empty, just as
the women had said. However, he did not experience what it was that the
women had experienced. There was no
messenger there. Peter, and everybody
else for all time, was going to be forced to rely on the report of the women.
Peter is reported to have “bent down and saw only the strips of linen cloth”
(24:12b). Because of his life experience, however, Peter, like the women,
also knew that people do not rise from the dead. Thus the report of the women, undoubtedly,
still rang in his ears as nothing more than pure nonsense.
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