With such feelings they returned to Jerusalem, where the eleven,
who were all Galileans, found places of abode with those of Christ’s
followers who were dwellers in the city. Here they passed the Sabbath
heavily and sorrowfully, no doubt, and their thoughts must now have
reverted to their former business, to which it now became each one
of them to return, since he who had called them from their avocations
could now no more send them forth on his errands of love. On the
day after the sabbath, while such thoughts and feelings must still
have distressed them, almost as soon as they had risen, some of them
received a sudden and surprising call from several of the alarmed women,
who having faithfully ministered to all the necessities of Jesus during
his life, had been preparing to do the last sad offices to his dead
body. The strange story brought by these was, that having gone early in
the morning to the sepulcher, in the vale of Calvary, with this great
object, they had been horror-struck to find the place in which the
body had been deposited on sabbath eve, now empty, notwithstanding the
double security of the enormous rock which had closed the mouth of the
cave, and the stout guard of Roman soldiers who were posted there by
request of the Jews, to prevent expected imposition. On hearing this
strange story, Peter and John, followed by Mary of Magdala, started
at once for the sepulcher. As they made all possible haste, the youth
of John enabled him to reach the place before his older companion;
but Peter arrived very soon after him, and, outdoing his companion now
in prompt and diligent examination, as he had before been outdone in
bodily speed, he immediately made a much more thorough search of the
spot, than John in his hurry and alarm had thought of. He had contented
himself with looking down into the sepulcher, and having distinctly
seen the linen clothes lying empty and alone, he went not in. But when
Simon Peter came following him, he went into the sepulcher and saw the
linen clothes lie; and the napkin that was about his head, not lying
with the other clothes, but folded up carefully in a place by itself.
Having thus made a thorough search, as this shows, into every nook and
corner, he satisfied himself perfectly that the body had in some way or
other been actually removed, and on his reporting this to his companion,
he also came down into the cave, and made a similar examination, with
the same result. The only conclusion to which these appearances brought
their minds, was that some person, probably with the design of further
insult and injury, had thus rifled the tomb, and dragged the naked
body from its funeral vestments. For, as yet, they understood not the
scripture, nor the words of Christ himself, that he must rise from the
dead. The two disciples, therefore, overwhelmed with new distress, went
away again to their own temporary home, to consult with the rest of the
disciples, leaving Mary behind them, lingering in tears about the tomb.
Some time after their return, but before they had been able to explain
these strange appearances, Mary followed them home, and as soon as
she found them, added to their amazement immensely, by a surprising
story of her actually having seen Jesus himself, alive, in bodily form,
who had conversed with her, and had distinctly charged her to tell
his disciples, and Peter especially, that he would go before them
into Galilee, where he would meet them. When she came and told them
this, they were mourning and weeping. But when they had heard that he
was alive, though the story was confirmed with such a minute detail
of attendant circumstances, and though assured by her that she had
personally seen him, they yet believed not. So dark were their minds
about even the possibility of his resurrection, that afterwards,
when two of their own number, who had gone about seven miles into the
country, to Emmaus, returned in great haste to Jerusalem, and told the
disciples that they too had seen Jesus, and had a long talk with him,
they would not believe even this additional proof, but supposed that
they, in their credulous expectation, had suffered themselves to be
imposed on by some one resembling Jesus in person, who chose to amuse
himself by making them believe so palpable a falsehood. Yet some of
them, even then, suffering their longing hopes to get the better of
their prudent scepticism, were beginning to express their conviction
of the fact, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared unto
Simon.” Of this last-mentioned appearance, no farther particulars are
any where given, though it is barely mentioned in 1 Corinthians xv. 5.
and it is impossible to give any certain account of the circumstances.
While assembled at their evening meal, and thus discussing the various
strange stories brought to their ears in such quick succession, after
they had fastened the doors for security against interruption from the
Jews, all at once, without any previous notice, Jesus himself appeared
standing in the midst, and said, “Peace be unto you.” They seeing the
mysterious object of their conversation, so strangely and suddenly
present among them, while they were just discussing the possibility
of his existence, were much frightened, and in the alarm of the moment
supposed that they were beholding a disembodied spirit. But he soon
calmed their terrors, and changed their fear into firm and joyful
assurance, that he was indeed the same whom they had so long known,
and to prove that the body now before them was the same which they had
two days before seen fastened expiring to the cross, he showed them his
hands, his feet, and his side, with the very marks which the spear and
nails had made in them. And while they yet could not soberly believe
for joy, and stood wondering, he, to show them that his body still
performed the functions of life, and required the same support as
theirs, asked them for a share of the food on the table, and taking
some from their hands, he ate it before them. He then upbraided them
with their unbelief and stupidity in not believing those who had seen
him after he was risen from the dead. He recalled to their minds his
former repeated warnings of these very events, literally as they had
been brought to pass. He said to them, “These are the words which
I spake to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets,
and in the psalms, concerning me.” Then opened he their understandings,
that they might understand the scriptures. Then it was, that at last
burst upon them the light so long shut out; they knew their own past
blindness, and they saw in the clear distinctness of reality, all his
repeated predictions of his humiliation, suffering, death, resurrection,
and of their cowardice and desertion, brought before them in one glance,
and made perfectly consistent with each other and with the result.
So that, amid the rejoicings of new hope born from utter despair, at
the same time expired their vain and idle notion of earthly glory and
power under his reign. Their Master had passed through all this anguish
and disgrace, and come back to them from the grave; yet, though thus
vindicating his boundless power, he did not pretend to use the least
portion of it in avenging on his foes all the cruelties which he had
suffered from their hands. They could not hope, then, for a better fate,
surely, than his; they were to expect only similar labors, rewarded
with similar sufferings and death.