The Third Day He Rose Again from the Dead

Way are we sure of our Lord’s Resurrection?

There ts, first, the evidence of the Open Grave. On the Friday night, the women left the sepulchre with many tears, and were succeeded after a brief interval by the Roman sentries, and so the weary hours sped with leaden-footed pace until the third morning broke. What a spectacle was revealed by the herald streaks that glimmered timidly over Olivet? The stone disturbed; the sentries panic-stricken; angels radiant with tidings of the Risen Christ; but the dear body gone, only the grave-clothes were left.

But that missing body and those remaining clothes are to us among the most conclusive of all the proofs of our Lord’s glorious Resurrection. Where was the body that had been nailed to the cross and buried so lovingly in that garden-tomb?

Some say that He swooned, and had recovered as He lay in His narrow niche; and rolled away

the stone with his own hand. But how could 97 one who had passed through the scourging and the death of consuming agony, who had sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, and had fainted beneath the weight of His Cross on the Via Dolorosa, have become possessed of sufficient strength to move a stone which had required the united strength of three or four to roll into its place? But suppose that He was capable of this, was there any conceivable reason for Him to leave behind His clothes? How impossible, too, to think that He was somewhere in hiding on the Day of Pentecost, in hiding on the Ascension Day, in hiding when Stephen was for His sake stoned! The hypothesis is too monstrous to be entertained for a moment.

Could His enemies have borne away His body? Surely not, for it would have been the easiest thing possible for them to produce it directly His friends began to proclaim His Resurrection. Here would have been a conclusive proof that their contention could not be sustained.

If robbers had stolen it, would it not have been well worth their while to have produced it when the Sanhedrim was endeavouring to put down the voice of the infant Church. If His friends had borne it off, how impossible they would have found it to convince the world that He who was crucified in weakness was living by the power of God.

Think, too, of the orderliness of that sepulchre. In their hurry to the sepulchre on the morning of the Resurrection, John outstripped his older friend, and his loving, and, therefore, quick eye, instantly detected the orderliness with which the clothes were disposed, and we are told that “he saw and believed.” That the handkerchief, which had been bound about His head, should be wrapped together in a place by itself was in itself evidence enough that the Master was risen. If His friends had taken away the body they would have borne it off decently covered. If His enemies had done so surely they would not have taken the trouble to unwind it. To them both linen clothes and spices would have been an appreciable addition to their spoils. Surely there was something in the appearance of the clothes which could not be accounted for, except that they had collapsed by the transformation which had changed the solid body on which they rested into something as unsubstantial as the viewless air. “He seeth the linen clothes lying.”

Then with what tenderness Jesus had wrapped up the napkin which had been lovingly placed around His head! As the gift of tender love He could not lightly cast it aside, but with His own hands had wrapped it together, and laid it by itself. Surely this was a trait, living and compelling of Him who had bidden the multitudes sit down in ordered ranks, had ordered the fragments to be collected, and who noticed with a smile the two common coins dropped by a poor woman in the treasury.

The Resurrection Body was evidently not altogether dissimilar to that which the Apostles had known and loved. Mary recognised the voice. Thomas beheld the scars of the cross, they all knew Him, convinced against their will. Yet how different! All the former substance was present, but in another form, as water may exist in the form of steam. If matter be, as modern science says, only a form of electricity, why should not the rate of vibration have become so altered, that what had been visible to human eyes should evade them, just as certain sounds are too shrill and piercing for the majority of ears! Thus, the Lord could pass through closed doors, appear and disappear, and ascend contrary to gravitation, to the higher home from which He came.