Mastodawn

Seeing, Running, Believing

When Resurrection Breaks Open the Heart
A Day in the Life of Jesus

There are moments in the Gospel narratives where the reader is invited not merely to observe but to run alongside the disciples, to feel their breath shorten and their thoughts race as events outrun understanding. John 20:2–9 is one such moment. I find myself returning to it often, especially when faith feels suspended between hope and comprehension. “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb,” Mary Magdalene says, her words trembling with confusion and grief. Nothing in her voice suggests resurrection—only loss. And yet, what unfolds next becomes the turning hinge of history. The resurrection does not begin with triumphant certainty; it begins with bewilderment, movement, and the slow dawning of belief.

John’s account is strikingly personal. He does not hide the human detail that he outran Peter to the tomb, nor does he conceal his hesitation to step inside. When he stoops and sees the linen cloths lying there, something arrests him. The Greek verb blepō suggests careful noticing, not yet comprehension. Peter, characteristically bold, enters the tomb and sees more closely. The grave is not ransacked. The linen wrappings lie undisturbed, and the face cloth—soudarion—is rolled up separately, still shaped as if a head had once rested within it. This is no act of theft. As many commentators have observed, no grave robber would unwrap a body only to leave the linens intact. Raymond Brown notes that the arrangement of the cloths points to an orderly, intentional departure, not a hurried removal. Resurrection leaves behind evidence not of chaos, but of completion.

What grips me here is that belief does not arrive all at once. John tells us plainly, “Then I went in too, and saw, and believed—for until then we had not understood the Scripture that he must rise from the dead.” The verb shifts now to horaō, seeing with perception. Faith begins to awaken, not because every theological question is answered, but because reality presses in with quiet authority. The resurrection does not shout. It invites. Augustine once reflected that the folded cloths were a sign that Jesus left death not as one escaping but as one finishing a task. The work was done. Death had been met and overcome from the inside.

This passage gently teaches us patience with the process of belief, both in ourselves and in others. The stages outlined in the study are not a formula but a pastoral observation drawn from lived experience. Some first hear of the resurrection and dismiss it as impossible, a fabrication born of grief or wishful thinking. Mary herself begins there. Others, like Peter, investigate and are left puzzled. Facts alone do not always produce faith. Still others come to belief only through personal encounter, as Mary does later when Jesus calls her by name. And finally, belief matures into devotion, when Thomas confesses, “My Lord and my God.” Each stage matters. None are wasted. Faith is not rushed into existence; it is formed.

I often remind myself—and those I walk with—that Jesus did not rebuke the disciples for their slowness here. He did not demand instant clarity. Even after the resurrection, understanding unfolded gradually. Luke tells us that Peter returned home “wondering to himself what had happened.” Wonder is not unbelief; it is faith stretching toward comprehension. N.T. Wright has written that resurrection belief in the early church was not born from predisposition but from encounter. No one was expecting this. Something happened that forced a reinterpretation of Scripture, life, and God’s purposes. The disciples did not invent the resurrection; they stumbled into it.

The detail of the linen cloths has always spoken to me pastorally. They suggest that Jesus did not simply leave the tomb; He transformed it. Death’s trappings were left behind, still bearing the shape of what once was, but emptied of power. How often our lives resemble those cloths—old fears, former identities, past sins still lying there, shaped by memory but no longer containing life. Resurrection does not erase the past; it renders it powerless. Paul later echoes this truth when he writes that Christ was “raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). What once bound us no longer defines us.

I want to say gently what the Gospel itself implies: give faith time to breathe. If you are running toward the tomb with questions, you are not failing. If you stand at the entrance, hesitant to go in, you are not excluded. Even belief that begins with uncertainty is honored when it continues moving toward Jesus. The risen Christ meets people where they are, not where they think they should be. He calls Mary by name. He invites Thomas to touch. He walks with confused disciples on the Emmaus road. Resurrection faith is relational before it is doctrinal.

John’s Gospel tells us that belief followed seeing, but it also tells us that Scripture eventually caught up with experience. The disciples later realized that the Scriptures had said this all along. The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms had been whispering resurrection long before the tomb was empty. Hosea’s promise that God would raise His people on the third day, Isaiah’s vision of death being swallowed up, and the psalms that speak of God not abandoning His Holy One to decay—all of these threads converge here. Faith matures when experience and Scripture begin to interpret one another.

December 19 sits close to the Church’s Advent rhythm, a season of waiting and expectation. Even as we move toward Christmas, the resurrection quietly shapes our anticipation. The child born in Bethlehem is born with an empty tomb already in view. The linen cloths of John 20 anticipate the swaddling cloths of Luke 2, reminding us that incarnation and resurrection belong together. Jesus enters fully into human vulnerability so that He might lead humanity fully into new life.

As this day unfolds, I invite you to walk gently with Jesus through your own stages of belief. If you are skeptical, keep listening. If you are puzzled, keep looking. If you believe, keep committing your life anew to the risen Lord. Resurrection is not merely an event to affirm; it is a presence to live with. Christ is not only risen; He is present, shaping ordinary days with extraordinary hope.

May the Lord bless you as you seek to walk with Jesus today. May your faith, whatever stage it is in, be met with His patience and grace. And may the quiet evidence of resurrection—seen, remembered, and trusted—steady your heart as you follow Him.

For further reading, you may find this article helpful:
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/John/Empty-Tomb

FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND REPOST, SO OTHERS MAY KNOW

#BeliefAndDiscipleship #EasterTheology #emptyTomb #John20Devotion #resurrectionOfJesus #StagesOfFaith