We don’t know a whole lot about Mary Magdalene. We’re told in Luke 8 that Jesus had done a mighty work of grace in her life by casting out seven demons. We know that she was one of the women who ministered to Jesus and the disciples. But that’s about all we know until we come to the activities during this last week of Christ’s life.

Now if Thomas is a great example of the death of faith, the Emmaus disciples, whom I identify as Cleopas and his wife Mary, are great examples of the death of hope. They had been in Jerusalem during the days of the Passover and had hoped that Jesus was the Messiah who would usher in His kingdom. They had heard that certain women whom they knew had gone to the tomb and had returned saying that Jesus had risen from the dead. Yet so far were they from believing in a resurrection, so far were they from having any Christian hope whatsoever, that they didn’t even bother to go to the tomb to investigate themselves. It was done, and so they started out for their home in Emmaus.

When Jesus died, the faith of His disciples died. There was much about Jesus that they didn’t understand, but what they did understand, they believed and they followed Him because of this. For the three years they were with Him, He was their life. Where He went, they went. What He said, they heard. What He instructed, they tried to obey. Then all of a sudden, even though He had warned them of it, He was taken away, tried and crucified. And they were utterly despondent. So you see, in a sense we can say that when Jesus died, His disciples died too.

The second lesson from this story is this. The experiences of Peter and John at the tomb also indicate that the body of the Lord was glorified. It was sown a natural body and was raised a spiritual body. And in this body Jesus lives, seated at the right hand of God where He waits in glory, interceding for His own until the moment when He will return again in judgment.

At this point Peter arrived and went into the sepulchre. Undoubtedly Peter saw what John had seen, but in addition he was struck by something else. The cloth that had been around the head was not with the other clothes, it was lying in a place by itself (v. 7).

Now what would we have seen had we been there at the moment at which Jesus was raised from the dead? Would we have seen Jesus stir, open His eyes, sit up, and begin to struggle out of the bandages? Is this what we would have seen? Not at all. That would have been a resuscitation, not a resurrection. It would have been the same as if He had recovered from a swoon. Jesus would have been raised in a natural body rather than a spiritual body, and that was not the case at all.

Mary meanwhile found the two chief disciples Peter and John, presumably in John’s house where the beloved disciple had taken Mary, Jesus’ mother. The two disciples immediately started for the tomb, running and leaving Mary far behind. John was the younger man. Consequently, he arrived at the tomb first, stooped to look through the narrow aperture, and saw the graveclothes.