Day 318 (Matthew 28, Mark 16) - Year 8

Tara-Leigh Cobble (0:01)

Hey, Bible Readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.

If you're doing our New Testament Plan, today we finished our first and second books. And if you're doing the whole Bible, we finished our 40th and 41st books. Congratulations. It's also kind of a big day in Bible reading plans regardless, because it's Resurrection Day. In 1 Corinthians 15, when Paul writes about this moment 30 years after the fact, he says, If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. The death and resurrection of Christ is the hinge point of history and the foundation of our faith.

Roughly three days have passed since Jesus was crucified, and it's now the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning. While it's still dark, there's another earthquake that happens concurrent with the appearance of an angel, and it seems they may be working in tandem to roll the stone away.

We've talked about this before, but angels always appear as human males, which is one reason why Mark's Gospel may refer to the angel as a young man. Angels are often dressed in white, and while scripture never shows them with wings or halos, their appearance is usually described as radiant or like lightning. There are some scripture-based theories that they may be very large, like bigger than Shaq big, and when they encounter humans, they often open with the phrase fear not, probably because of their size and because it seems like they can travel at the speed of thought and manifest out of thin air. Angels are maybe terrifying, so when the guards see the angel, they basically become catatonic. But here come Mary Magdalene and Bonus Mary, we're not sure exactly which Mary she is or if we've even met her before, and Joanna and Salome. Here's something worth pointing out before we get too deep into this. Some gospels record two angels, and some gospels record only one Mary. But as we've seen, the authors tell the part of the story that shines a light on the point they're trying to make. It doesn't mean there's any kind of contradiction or manipulation, just a different focus.

When the women arrive, the angel speaks to them and tells them not to be afraid. I kind of love that he didn't tell that to the guards. He's not there for them. He's there to give a message to the followers of Jesus. It's fine and fitting for his enemies to be afraid. You may have a note in your Bible that this is where the oldest manuscripts of Mark's gospel end, at the raising of Christ in verse 8 A lot of what's said in verses 9 through 20 can be found elsewhere in Scripture, so we'll address those parts when we get to them. But for the parts that only appear here, since they're questionable, we'll just let Scripture whisper.

The angel tells the women that Jesus has been raised from the dead. He invites them to see the empty tomb, then tells them to spread the word to the others. So they go and spread the word, but even then it seems like maybe Mary Magdalene still doesn't quite understand, at least according to John's gospel. Since we're covering the resurrection in today's recap, I have to spill a few of the beans from tomorrow's reading in order to cover all four gospel accounts. So forgive me. The timeline isn't given clearly here, but it seems like a lot of people keep returning to the scene and having different encounters each time. The best sense I can make of the order of events is that the women show up and see the angel in the empty tomb, the women leave until the disciples, Peter and John run back to check things out, and Mary goes back as well, and maybe some of the other women join her too. Meanwhile, the guards have shaken off their shock and they go back into the city to tell the authorities what they just saw. The elders bribe the soldiers to lie about what happened and say that his body was stolen by his disciples during the night. The soldiers realize they can be in big trouble for leaving the tomb, so they agree to the conspiracy.

When Peter and John come to see for themselves, John stoops to look in, but Peter, ever the daredevil, goes all the way into the tomb. Then John follows. John's account says they both saw the linen grave clothes folded up and placed aside. One reason this is noteworthy is because they may have still wondered at this point if his body had been stolen by grave robbers, but thieves don't fold laundry. They never would have taken the time to unbind him, fold the clothes up and place them to the side, that just take the body, mummy rags and all. So this is one of the disciples' first clues that Jesus has risen from the dead. Meanwhile, Mary is outside sobbing, probably dealing with a whole mixture of emotions that include feeling confused and elated and hopeful and fearful.