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But this is only a part of the proof
of the resurrection. The burial prep,–
arations and. believe it or not. even
the grave clothes must be placed in
evidence.
The Buri al Preparations and the
Grave Clothes
When Joseph of Arimathaea asked
Pila te for the body of Jesus. Pila te
marvcled at the fact that He was
a lready dead and sirnply would not
be fully convinced without first con–
fi rming it wi th the Roman centurion
who had been assigned to the cruci–
fixion site (see Mark 15:42-45).
John's accou nt adds sorne impor–
tan! dctails to the story of the burial
preparations. "And there carne a lso
Nicodcmus, which at the first carne
to Jesus by night (see John 3], and
brought a mixture of myrrh and
aloes,
about an hundred pound
weight.
Then took they the body of
Jesus. and
wound
ir
in finen clothes
with the spices,
as the manner of the
Jews is to bury" (John 19:39-40). As
we will see a little later, the entire
prepara tion and manner of burial
plays an importan! part in sorne of
the la ler evidence at the empty
tomb.
Just the empty tomb by itself did
not even convince Mary Magdalene
(to whom the risen Ch rist first ap–
peared) of the fact that He was now
resurrected. Actually, the sight of
the tomb itself had filled her with
fear and apprehension (Mark 16:8).
She carne running to Peter and John
and quickly told them: "They have
taken away the Lord out of the se–
pulchre, and we know not where
they have laid him" (John 20:2).
Obviously she believed that somc–
one simply had stolen Jesus' body.
Peter and Joh n immediately ran
to thc sepulchre to investigate her
story for themselves. John outran
Peter. arriving on the scene first.
"And he [John] stooping down, and
looking in,
saw the finen c fothes
lying;
ye t went he not in" (verse 5).
Pe ter, presumptuous by na ture,
charged right in to see the whole
scene for himself. He, too, saw
"the
finen clothes fie"
(verse 6).
But Peter also saw something
more. as the next verse explains:
"And the napkin, that was about his
head , not lying with the linen
clothes, but wrapped together in a
The
PLAIN TRUTH June 1977
place by itselr' (verse 7). Then John
finally entered the sepulchre and.
seeing the exact same scene as Peter,
"believed" (verse 8).
What made John believe? The
empty tomb? The abscnce of the
body? Probably not. That in itself
would not necessari ly prove Jesus
had been resurrected.
This scripture strongly indicates
that it was the condition of the
grave clothes that convinced John.
They were relatively undisturbed
except for the separation of the
"head napkin" just a little space
away, próbably on that same stone
slab.
lt
wasn' t all that casy for a live
specimen, much less a corpse, to dis–
engage itself from a first-century
Jewish burial wrapping!
The indications are that Lazarus
was buried in exactly the same man–
ner as Jesus Christ was.
minus a
hundred pounds of spices.
Undoubt–
edly, both Joseph of Arimathaea
and Nicodemus, two of a kind in
being "secret" disciples, felt very
guilty about thei r unvoiced con–
victions and really went all out in
their burial preparations for Jesus
Christ.
Notice John's account of Lazarus'
resurrection. "And when he (Jesus]
thus had spoken [t h a t famous
eleven-second prayer], he cried with
a loud voice, Lazarus, come for th .
And he that was dead carne forth,
bound hand and Joot with grave–
clothes: and hisJace was bound about
with a napkin "
(John 11 :43-44). In
all essent ials, this was the standard
Jewish burial of2,000 yea rs ago.
But did Lazarus then ca lmly Jet
himself o ut of the meticulously
wrapped grave clothes? No. Jesus
had to say to those around him:
"Loose him, and fet him go"
(verse
44). So they probably unwound him
strip by strip and fold by fold.
That is not, howevcr, how Jesus
discarded His own grave clothes.
Firs t of a ll, Christ was weighed
down by a hundred pounds of spices
sprinkled in the folds of the grave
clothes. As a normal human being,
unwinding Himself under all that
weight would bave been a lmos! im–
possible.
But Jesus didn't get out by any
normal method.
Picture the sight which shocked
Peter and John . The grave clothes
were undoubtedly collapsed from
the weight of the spices,
but not un–
wrapped.
One good look al the grave
clothes and John believed Jesus had
been resu rrected. What he saw was
not unlike a discarded chrysalis
from which a butterfly had just
emerged.
•
lf severa! strands of unwrapped
lineo clothes had been lying here
and there, carelessly tossed about
the sepulchre, there would have
been no reason to sta te that the
head napkin was clearly separated
from the main part of the grave
clothes.
Remember, as in the case of La–
zarus, the grave clothes and th e
head napkin were two separate
types of lincn cloth wound about a
corpse.
ll
is a lso possible that the head
napkin was left undisturbed. The
Greek cxpression "wrapped to–
gether" (KJV), or "rolled up"
(RSV). cou ld a lso be translated
"twirled," which would leave the
impression that the head napkin
might have been
untouched by
human hands.
The Nature of the Resurrection
The condition of the grave clothes
evinces the very nature of the resur–
rection.
It
was a resurrection into a
totally different dimension. Jesus
stepped back into space itself. He
went right through a solid rock wall,
having been transformed instanta–
neously back into spirit life. The
giant stone was not rolled away to
Jet Jesus out; it was rolled away to
Jet the disciples in.
Blasphemous accusations to the
contrary, your Savior is
afive
today!
He did not plot with His disciples to
hoodwink un suspecti ng " J esus
freaks" of His day into belicving on
Him. Rather, the evidence of the
eyewitness accounts of His closest
confidants reveals Jesus underwent
repeated challenges and tests as He
tried, unsuccessfully at first, lo
prove
to doubting friends that He had in
fact been resurrected!
Though authors, screenwriters.
"critics" and theologians have cho–
sen to carelessly tamper with the in–
vio late scriptures and claim Jesus
was evcrything from a head of a
(Continued on page 42)
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