"Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb. She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved.
"Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb.
"Simon Peter ... entered into the tomb.
"Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, ... and he saw and believed."—John xx. 1, 2, 3, 6, 8.
"Let us take John for our instructor in the swiftness of love, and Peter for our teacher in courage."—Stalker.
"Oh, sacred day, sublimest day!
Oh, mystery unheard!
Death's hosts that claimed Him as their prey
He scattered with a word;
And from the tomb He valiant came;
And ever blessed be His name."
—Kingo. Trans. Hymns of Denmark.
"Mine eye hath found that sepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store."
—Milton.—The Passion.
Of the women who visited the tomb of Jesus on the morning of the Resurrection, John was especially interested in Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, probably in his presence; thus giving him opportunity to see the marvelous change from a most abject condition, to grateful devotion to her Healer, perhaps beyond that of any other one whom He healed. John long remembered her starting on her errand "while it was yet dark." So he remembered Judas starting when "it was night" on his errand, of which Mary's was the sad result. One was a deed of love which no darkness hindered: the other was a deed of hate which no darkness prevented or concealed.
John had a special reason for remembering Mary. When she had seen that the stone was taken away from the tomb, it had a different meaning to her from what it did when she and John saw it on Friday evening. And when she "found not the body of the Lord Jesus," she imagined that either friends had borne it away, or foes had robbed the tomb. In surprise, disappointment and anxiety, her first impulse was to make it known—to whom else than to him who had sorrowed with her at the stone-closed door? So she "ran"—not with unwomanly haste, but with the quickened step of woman's love—"to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved." They were both loved, but not in the fuller sense elsewhere applied to John. Astonished at her early call, startled at the wildness of her grief, sharing her anxiety, "they ran both together" "toward the tomb" from which she had so hastily come. But it was an uneven race. John, younger and nimbler, "outran Peter and came first to the tomb." "Yet entered he not in." Reverence and awe make him pause where love has brought him. For a few moments he is alone. His earnest gaze confirms the report of Mary that somebody has "taken away the Lord." He can only ask, Who? Why? Where? No angel gives answer. Still his gaze is rewarded. "He seeth the linen cloths lying." These are silent witnesses that the precious body has not been hastily and rudely snatched away by unfriendly hands, such as had mangled it on the cross.
Peter arriving, everywhere and evermore impulsive, enters at once where John fears to tread. He discovers what John had not seen,—"the napkin that was upon His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself." John does not tell whose head, so full is he of the thought of his Lord.