from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 
(Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Contents
 

 

Lesson 29

John 20: 1-18  Early at the Sepulchre

The Story

Primary

Easter Day! The Lord is risen indeed! All those who loved the Lord were sad on the Friday evening when the Lord had been crucified by His enemies, and His body had been laid in the sepulchre, with a great stone rolled to the door. Sunday was a day of glad surprise for the disciples and the loving women. One was saying to another, "The Lord is risen," "The Lord is risen indeed." But they were slow to believe it; only gradually they believed and knew that it was so.

Mary Magdalene was one of the women who came early to the sepulchre, and found the stone rolled away. Without waiting to learn more she ran to Peter and John, and said, "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him." The two disciples ran to the sepulchre. (Some of you have the picture of them running, John the younger man running faster than the older Peter.) The sepulchre was open, and when they went in and saw the linen clothes lying on the floor, John saw the meaning, the Lord had risen.

Mary stayed by the sepulchre weeping. Looking in she saw two angels sitting. They spoke kindly to her and asked, "Woman, why weepest thou?" Then the still greater surprise, when Jesus Himself stood near her and spoke to her. At first she thought He was the gardener (the sepulchre was in a garden), and she did not know Him until He spoke her name, "Mar "; and she said, "My Master." She was the first to see the risen Lord.

Junior

"Grandest day of all the ages! Easter Day!" Easter Day, like Christmas, is a happy and holy day. Our Easter songs are full of gladness. What makes it happy? On that day early the Lord rose from the sepulchre, and that day sadness was turned into joy for the disciples as they learned that the Lord still lived, and was still with them, to love them and help them as before. On that day all the sufferings of the Lord's earthly life were over. The great work for mankind was finished with absolute perfection, and He arose from the sepulchre with a Divinely human body, and a Divinely human nature to which all people forever can come for Divinely human help in their trouble. The hasty burial had been on Friday afternoon. He had lain in the grave over the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday, and with His rising on the Sunday morning, the Christian Church was born. The Lord had told them that He would be killed and would rise again, but they had not understood or remembered His words. (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; Mark 9:10) They were not expecting His resurrection, and were very slow to believe those who first saw Him and brought them the glad news. (Mark 16:9-14) The dawning and brightening of Easter joy is told in our chapter. Consider it in five scenes.

First, Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre, when it was yet dark. What do we know of Mary besides the fact that she was of Magdala? (Mark 16:9; John 19:25) The verse in Mark seems to connect the deliverance of Mary by the Lord with the fact that she was the first to see Him. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Second, the visit of Peter and John to the sepulchre. There were the clothes collapsed upon the floor, not as if hands had touched them, but as if the body had simply left them. John's love and reverence for the Lord made him perhaps more slow to enter, but made him more quick to perceive and believe that the Lord was risen.

Third, Mary Magdalene again at the sepulchre. The two angels at the head and feet remind us that holy angels are with all who die protecting them and preparing them for the awakening. (H. 449) "Why weepest thou?" Her thoughts were still with the body, thinking of the Lord as dead. She must learn to know the risen Lord. The two disciples whom the Lord joined in the walk to Emmaus did not know Him until they recognized Him in the breaking of bread. (Luke 24:16, 31) Mary knew Him as He spoke her name.


1. Who were with Mary Magdalene when she came early to the sepulchre? Why were they coming?

2. What two disciples came to the sepulchre? Which first reached the place? Which first went in? Which first believed?

3. Who stood weeping by the sepulchre when others had gone away? What did she see and hear?

4. Who was the first to see the risen Lord? What did the Lord send her to do?

Spiritual Study

Intermediate

It was spiritually as well as naturally the first day of the week when the women came to the sepulchre and learned that the Lord was risen. It marked the beginning of, a new state of thought and feeling for them and for the church. Note the words applied to their coming: "When it was yet dark"; "at the rising of the sun." (Mark 16:2; A. 2405,10114; E. 179)

A stone, spiritually, is an unchanging truth, a fact, or what is believed to be a fact and asserted as a fact. Peter's declaration, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," the Lord said was the stone on which His church would be built. A rocky sepulchre and a great stone at the door, making safe the body's resting place, may have stood to the wise ancients for the sure truth of eternal life.

The stone seems at first to represent the fact of death, which seems sometimes an inexorable fact. Sealed by the priests it represents determination of evil hearts that the Lord shall be dead and shall remain so. How differently death appeared to the Easter angels. They accepted the fact of death, but they dispelled its sadness. To them it meant resurrection and for the Lord life all Divine. A stone is rolled to the door of the sepulchre when in any natural disappointment there comes disbelief and denial of the Lord's loving presence and care. The stone is rolled away by angel hands when the heavenly truth is received of His continued care and love. (R. 339, 900)

The women first at the sepulchre represent tender, grateful affections for the Lord, which open our minds to perceive His living presence. The running of John and Peter to the sepulchre pictures the awakening of other powers of the mind to the reality of the Lord's presence, or to His presence in a new and higher way after the disappointment of natural hopes. John has stood to us as a type of love for the Lord, and Peter of faith in Him. This pictures a further awakening of love and faith, of will and understanding. Love is more quickly awakened. The women were first at the sepulchre. John outran Peter and was also the first to perceive the meaning of the empty tomb and grave clothes and to believe that the Lord was risen. Peter's going first into the sepulchre suggests investigation by the understanding, and its aid to the perception of a loving heart. (R. 879; E. 9)

The linen clothes in which the dead were wrapped with spices we may think of in a general way as representing the thoughts and beliefs concerning those who had gone. Sometimes they were dark thoughts in which was little hope of resurrection. Such thoughts were like the grave clothes which held Lazarus bound, until the Lord bade them to loose them. The clothes in which they wrapped the body of the Lord represented in the minds of Joseph and Nicodemus loving thoughts but containing little hope. In the presence of the Easter angels, the stone was rolled back from the door, denial and disbelief giving place to the glad certainty of resurrection. In their presence also the grave clothes were loosed and became emblems of bright thoughts of the Lord's glorified and eternal presence.

In reading of Joseph and Nicodemus in our last lesson we learned that with very ancient people the wrappings and ointments of the dead were expressions of faith in the immortal life, and as applied to the Lord faith that He lived glorified and Divine. They spoke this message now to John. No less true, less glorious thought could stand. (A. 10252)

The account of Mary's change from weeping by the empty tomb to joyful recognition of the risen Lord is most beautiful, and it is representative of such changes with us all. The inquiry of the angels and of the Lord, "Woman, why weepest thou?" suggests their tender sympathy and their desire that we shall see the cause of our sorrow, as a help in removing it. (Compare the Lord's questions to some before He healed them, John 5 : 6; Mark 10:51.) The Lord's question was more searching than the angels', and He knows our hearts more thoroughly than they. It is twice said that Mary turned herself, first to see the Lord as a gardener, and again to recognize Him as her dear Lord and Master. The turning represented the turning of her mind. The first turning to see the Lord as the gardener represents the opening of the mind to instruction. For the trees and plants of a garden represent intelligence of beautiful kinds, and the Lord is the gardener when we are teachable and let Him guide our thought. The second turning of Mary when the Lord spoke her name represents the full sense of His living presence. Compare in the Revelation John's turning to see the Lord. (Revelation 1:12; R. 90; T. 467)

What did the Lord mean by ascending to the Father? (E. 899)

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