Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast.
And today it's Easter Sunday. So happy Easter to all of you
who are listening, this is the podcast where we look at the
Gospel. Reading that is read at today's
Catholic mass and we really dive into the text.
What is the text trying to communicate to its original
audience? So, we're doing an exegesis of
it. And today for Easter Sunday, we
are looking at John chapter 20, Verse 1 to 9.
It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark
when Mary of magdala came to the tomb.
She saw that the stone had been moved away from the tomb and
came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one
Jesus loved. They have taken the Lord out of
the Tomb. She said and we don't know where
they have put him. So Peter said out with the other
disciple to go to the tomb, they ran together but the other
disciple running running faster than Peter reached the tomb.
First, he went down he bent down and saw the linen cloths lying
on the ground but did not go in. Simon Peter, who was following
now. Came up went right into the tomb
saw. The linen cloths on the ground
and also the cloth that had been over his head.
This was not with a linen cloths, but rolled up in a place
by itself, then the other disciple who had reached the
tomb. First also went in he saw and he
believed Till this moment, they had failed to understand the
teaching of scripture that he must rise from the dead.
So that's our passage for today. Now, let's have a go at doing an
exegesis of the text. The first thing, you always want
to ask yourself when you're doing an exegesis is, what's the
context? What has happened?
Just before this? Well, the main thing that's
happened just before John chapter 20 is, Jesus has died on
the cross in John chapter 19 and they have laid him in the Tomb.
So now we get to verse 1 and it's the first day of the week,
now, in Jewish Reckoning that Sunday.
So, we're talking about Sunday, Day, two days after Jesus dies.
So very early in the morning while it's still dark.
And if we have our dating, right?
This would be Sunday, April 5th, 33 ad, and Mary of magdala is
coming to the tomb. So, Mary of magdala, she appears
in the gospels as one of Jesus, closest friends and followers
and she was at the foot of the cross.
So she comes to the tomb and we know from the gospel of Mark, if
you compare this story with the version in the gospel of Mark
that she's not alone here, she's with some other women.
So Joanna, is there Mary Mary the wife of clopas and they've
all come to anoint the body with spices.
If you read, Mark 16 the start of that chapter, you'll see that
there's a group of women that have come here early in the
morning to anoint the body with spices.
She saw that the stone had been moved away from the tomb now,
according to the gospel of Matthew, Mary Magdalene and the
other women, they actually see an angel descend from heaven,
and they see the angel roll the stone away.
So, if we put these two gospels together, it appears that was
soon as that happens, where the woman's see, the stone being
rolled away. Mary of Magdalene now leaves and
she runs back to Peter and John, which is what happens in Our
Gospel. So she leaves the other women at
the tomb. Mary Magdalene verse 2.
Came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple.
So she's not going to all the apostles, although, later in the
day, the other Possible's will be told, but she's going to, it
appears to be the two leaders, basically, Simon Peter.
And the other disciple. Those that she recognizes are
the leaders of the Christian Community.
So Peter obviously, he's the head Apostle, and the last time
we saw him, he had denied Jesus. And the other disciple is not
named here as just called the one whom Jesus loved most
Scholars. Would say the fact that he's not
named in the Gospel of John, probably indicates that it's
John himself. The author is the Apostle.
John So, probably talking here about the author.
Now, talking about himself in third person.
So Peter and John and she says to them, they have taken the
Lord out of the Tomb and we don't know where they have put
him. So who's that?
They that she's talking about who's the who does she think is
taken Jesus out of the Tomb. It appears that because Mary
Magdalene at this stage, hasn't yet seen Jesus.
So she doesn't believe he's been resurrected, all she knows is
that the tomb is empty. That's all she knows for sure.
So, she interprets this to mean that someone has taken his body.
That's who her fiery. Someone has taken his body and
in that culture was quite common for robbers to break into Graves
and to steal bodies. So that's what she thinks
happened. Is that there's been a grave
robber who's coming stolen Jesus, so the two disciples set
out to find find out the truth. And it says that the other
disciple, outran, Peter, So John outran, Peter and that's
probably because John is younger than Peter.
John is probably about 30 years old whereas Peter might be 50
something. Now it does sound a bit like a
chica comment from the Apostle John year.
He's kind of showing off a bit in saying that I run it.
I outran, Peter. So they come to the tomb, and
you've probably seen pictures of what the tomb looks like.
It would have been a large carving in the wall, and for
quite, it was quite common for wealthy people, like Joseph of
Arimathea, who owned This tomb they would actually have private
tombs set into the wall much like you do see in the pictures.
So they come to this large, carving in the wall and they go
in and they see the linen cloths lying on the ground.
And John now spends a bit of time.
Describing what kind of cloths? They see.
So there's something significant about these clots, the fact that
the cloths are lying on the ground and these are the cloth
that are used to wrap. The dead person that probably
suggests a to the readers of John's original gospel.
It would have indicated to them that it wasn't robbers because
robbers don't unwrap the corpse before stealing at.
They just getting quickly. Grabbed the whole corpse with
the cloths and then leave so they wouldn't Wrap the person
first. So already John wants his
readers to understand that his body has not been stolen.
Apparently, around the time, John was writing his gospel.
There was a theory among some that Jesus body had been stolen
and he didn't really resurrect. So John seems to be very careful
here to show because he was there on the day.
That it can't be grave robbers. This also contrasts with the
resuscitation of Lazarus which is in the Gospel of John earlier
because if You remember the recessed rust recess attention
of Lazarus Lazarus walked out of the Tomb with his grave cloths.
Still on John wants his readers to notice that something.
Radically different has happened to Jesus, his Jesus has
apparently taken his own cloths off.
So John, he peers into the tomb and he can see the cloths but he
does not go in. Apparently, he recognizes
Peter's Authority as the leader, and he doesn't want to go in
until Peter arrives. So, Peter goes in verse 7, he
sees the cloth that had been over his head.
And John mentions, the Apostle John, the author mentions that
this cloth that had been over his head was not sit down with
the other cloths. It had been rolled up in a place
by itself. all of this suggests that this text has been written
by an eyewitness, by John himself, it's very hard to
explain how they would have known that otherwise So again,
John is probably including all this information about the grave
robber because there were some people who claim that the
robbers had broken into the tomb and still on the body.
So John's point is that the head cloth in particular being rolled
up neatly indicates that it wasn't robbers.
It appears that someone has carefully and slowly wrapped up
the cloth deliberately that's John's Point here.
Verse 8, John goes in because Peters gone in now Sir, John
thinks it's safe to go in and the text says he sees and
believes. So there's some debate about how
much John actually believes at this point, what does it mean?
When the text says he believes? Because the verb believe, can
mean he began to believe and that would make sense because
there's apparently, some things, the apostles don't yet fully
understand. Now, notice what John believes
in response to, he goes into the tomb and apparently he believes
in response to seeing the head cloth rolled up.
That's what makes him believe something about that makes John,
believe that Jesus really has resurrected.
And that particular fact, is analyzed in the catechism, the
catechism of the Catholic Church.
Normally doesn't do a lot of apologetic, sort of stuff, but
it does in one part of the catechism, talked a lot about
the fact that these Cloths of rolled up and we'll talk about
that. When we look at the catechism
sections, the last verse here is verse 9.
It says, till this moment, they had failed to understand the
teaching of scripture that he must rise from the dead.
Now, John would know this, Jordan would know that the
apostles hadn't understood. The Prophecies of scripture
since he himself is one of the Apostles and he's the author
who's writing this. So, John here, says that there's
Parts when he says scripture, that means the Old Testament.
So there's parts of the Old Testament, which apparently
teach that the Messiah must rise from the dead.
Now, it's interesting that John says that because there's no
specific really clear prophecies in the Old Testament, which say
the Messiah is going to rise from the dead.
There's nothing super clear about that and that's probably
why the disciples didn't realize it straight away.
So the disciple of do know the Old Testament but They don't
perceive the meaning of some of these obscure prophecies perhaps
in the Book of Daniel and Isaiah until Jesus is resurrected.
And then they realize that the Old Testament has been
prophesying that the Messiah would resurrect.
And in fact later if you read on the disciples, understand even
more when they're enlightened by the Holy Spirit, Now there is
one more verse that finishes this section which is verse 10.
That's not included in today's election Airy but it's a
versatile. Never actually read in the
lectionary. So we'll finish off with verse
10 today. So verse 10 just says, then the
disciples went back to their homes.
So basically Peter and John after they've seen all this they
go home, they're probably still a bit confused.
Now, later in the day, Jesus would appear again to all of the
disciples. But Peter and John for now they
go home. So it's just Just Mary Magdalene
that's left at the tomb and that leads into what happens next and
you can hear that next section that focuses on Mary Magdalene
on the Feast of Mary Magdalene every year and it's also on
Easter Tuesday a couple of days after this Easter Sunday
reading. So that's our joyful text for
today from John chapter 20. Let's have a look at where this
appears in the catechism. So firstly in paragraph, 2 174,
that's in the section. We've been looking at a bit over
the last few days in this podcast.
So there's a commentary there on what the significance is of the
fact that Jesus rose on the first day of the week.
So that's in paragraph, 2, 174 on.
I'll include that in the show notes.
The one, which is most relevant for us.
Today is paragraph. To e which is part of the
discussion about the empty tomb where the Catholic church.
And the catechism here, really tells us what to make of all
this business about the cloths. So paragraph 640 says, why do
you seek the living among the dead?
He is not here, but has risen the first element.
We encounter in the framework of the Easter events is the empty
tomb in itself. It is not a direct proof of the
Resurrection, the absence of, Christ's body from the tomb
could be explained otherwise nonetheless the empty tomb was
still an essential sign for all its Discovery by the disciples
was the first step towards recognizing the very fact of the
Resurrection this was the case first with the Holy Women and
then with Peter, The disciple whom Jesus loved affirmed that
when he entered the empty tomb and discovered the linen cloths
lying there he saw and believed this suggests that he realized
from the empty tombs condition that the absence of Jesus body
could not have been of human doing.
And the Jesus had not simply return to Earthly life as had
been the case with Lazarus. So it really striking paragraph
and it covers all the things we've talked about today, the
fact that they see the cloths rolled up in that way, suggest
to Peter and John firstly that his body hasn't been stolen and
secondly that his Jesus resurrection is not like Lazarus
as Resurrection. So we have an apologetic
argument here that the catechism is building towards to show that
the resurrection did really happen.
And then we also have paragraph 515 in the section about
Christ's whole life is Mystery. And it says, from the swaddling
cloths of his birth, to the vinegar of his passion and the
shroud of his resurrection, everything in Jesus life was a
sign of his mystery, his deeds Miracles and words, all revealed
that in him, the fullness of deity, dwells bodily and the
goes on from there. So, the catechism there sees a
similarity between the clothes, a trap Jesus.
When he was a baby and the clothes that wrapped the cloths
or up, Jesus, when He was buried and of course this is where we
get the Traditions about the Shroud of Turin from and the
theory is that these cloths which John saw when he poked his
head into the tomb on this day, one of them was the Shroud which
is now being preserved, so that's worth looking into as
well. That's the end of today's
podcast. Thank you so much for listening.
Please keep this ministry in your prayers and I hope you have
a really good Easter. We'll see you again tomorrow.
That's the end of today's podcast.
Thank you so much for listening. Please keep this ministry in
your prayers and I hope you have a really good Easter.
We'll see you again tomorrow.