Day 24 — The Gospel of John: The Word Became Flesh

Today’s Passage: John 20

The Sabbath silence breaks, and John gives us four scenes that amount to one confession being drawn out of a man: an empty tomb, a name spoken in a garden, a pair of wounded hands in a locked room, and at last Thomas, eight days later, on his knees. The whole Gospel has been climbing toward the sentence he finally says, My Lord and my God. Thomas asks to see the wounds, the risen Christ gives him exactly the evidence he asked for, and Thomas names Him. Article 4 is closed here twice over, for He arose bodily and He is God. Read the chapter as that one sentence being drawn out of a man who refused to say anything on somebody else’s word.

As you read, hold this: My Lord and my God.

John 20:1–10 (BSB)

¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ² So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” she said, “and we do not know where they have put Him!” ³ Then Peter and the other disciple set out for the tomb. ⁴ The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent down and looked in at the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Simon Peter arrived just after him. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. ⁷ The cloth that had been around Jesus’ head was rolled up, lying separate from the linen cloths. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in. And he saw and believed. ⁹ For they still did not understand from the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then the disciples returned to their homes.

The new creation begins while it is still dark. Mary comes to grieve, with no thought of resurrection in her, and finds the stone dragged out of its channel. Her conclusion is the one anybody would reach: somebody has taken the Lord away. So the first morning of the new world opens in confusion and tears, and faith comes up in it slowly, the way the light was coming up over the garden while she stood there.

The footrace is the touch of an eyewitness. The younger disciple outruns Peter and stops at the entrance; the impulsive Peter arrives behind him and goes straight in. What they find is cloth: the linen strips lying where the body had been, the face cloth rolled up and lying by itself. This is no robbery. The body has gone out through the wrappings and left them where they lay. Then the beloved disciple saw and believed, the first resurrection faith in the Gospel, and it came to him from an empty place read rightly rather than from a sight of Jesus. John admits they still did not understand from the Scripture that Jesus had to rise (v. 9). Their faith outran their theology. Sight of the grave clothes was enough to begin, and already Article 4 is on the table, for He arose bodily and the cloths are still lying there.

A note on the locked doors in verse 19, when you reach them, because that half-verse has been quoted as though it proved Jewish people dangerous. The disciples were afraid of the men who had just executed their Master, the temple authorities in Jerusalem with the power to arrest, and this is one more place where John’s phrase means those authorities and nothing wider. The disciples in that room were themselves Jewish, and so was the Lord who walked into it, so the fear is not one people’s fear of another. It is a handful of Galileans hiding from an authority that had killed the One they followed.

John 20:11–18 (BSB)

¹¹ But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent down to look into the tomb, ¹² and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³ “Woman, why are you weeping?” they asked. “Because they have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I do not know where they have put Him.” ¹⁴ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. But she did not recognize that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ “Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asked. “Whom are you seeking?” Thinking He was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Him off, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). ¹⁷ “Do not cling to Me,” Jesus said, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and tell My brothers, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’” ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what He had said to her.

The men go home. Mary stays and weeps. Her love keeps her there when, as far as she knows, nothing is left but a missing body. The angels sit where He had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet, like the cherubim over the mercy seat. She is so consumed by the loss that two angels barely register. Grief can stand in the doorway of glory and see only the place where a body used to be.

Then the risen Lord is standing there, and she does not know Him. He repeats the angels’ question and adds His own: “Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him the gardener, she offers to carry the body off herself, a grieving woman volunteering to lift a corpse. Then He speaks one word. “Mary.” The Shepherd calls His own sheep by name (10:3), and the sheep knows His voice. Rabbouni, my Teacher. What opened her eyes was her ears, the sound of her own name in the voice she knew.

“Do not cling to Me” turns her affection in a new direction instead of rebuking it. She cannot keep Him the way she kept the old days. He is on His way to the Father, and a nearer presence is coming by the Spirit. Then the staggering words: “My Father and your Father… My God and your God.” Through the resurrection His Father becomes theirs, and He calls the disciples “My brothers.” Then He entrusts the first proclamation to Mary, of all people. “I have seen the Lord!” In a world where a woman’s testimony carried no weight in court, the risen Christ makes a woman the first preacher of Easter. Her weeping has turned into witness, and the confession Thomas will finish has already started coming out of these people’s mouths.

John 20:19–23 (BSB)

¹⁹ It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them. ²⁰ After He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Again Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.” ²² When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”

Evening of the same day, the doors locked and fear in the room, and Jesus is standing among them with no door opened. His first word to that fear is the word He had promised them the night before He died (14:27). Then He shows them His hands and His side. A ghost has no hands to show. The body that walked out of the tomb still carries the holes the nails made, so the marks of the cross went into glory with Him and the Lamb will be the Lamb who was slain forever. They rejoiced when they saw the Lord, the joy He had foretold them (16:20, 22), and what they rejoiced over was the crucified One standing in that room holding out His wounds to be looked at.

Twice He says Peace, and on that peace He builds a commission: “As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.” Then He breathed on them. The verb is the one the Greek Old Testament uses in Genesis 2:7, when the LORD breathed into Adam the breath of life. The first Adam received natural life from the breath of God; the Last Adam breathes the Spirit of new life into His new-creation people. The authority over sins is the church’s gospel ministry: as they proclaim Him, they announce forgiveness to all who believe and the withholding of it from all who refuse, a verdict they carry from their Lord rather than a power of their own.

John 20:24–29 (BSB)

²⁴ Now Thomas called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands, and put my finger where the nails have been, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.” ²⁶ Eight days later, His disciples were once again inside with the doors locked, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷ Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.” ²⁸ Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Thomas missed the meeting, and so he missed the joy. The others greet him with Mary’s own sentence (“We have seen the Lord!”), and he will not take it secondhand. Centuries of readers have scorned him for that, though he asks for exactly what the other ten were freely given, a sight of the risen Lord with the wounds in Him. What goes wrong in him is the fist he closes around the asking: “I will never believe.” John lets those words stand as the unbelief they are. Then Jesus comes back through a locked door eight days later for the sake of one stubborn, grieving doubter, and that is the grace of the scene that follows.

A week passes, the doors locked again, and again He is standing among them saying Peace. Then He turns to Thomas and hands him back his own conditions, one clause at a time, proof that the risen Lord had heard every word Thomas spoke in a room where Jesus was nowhere to be seen. He meets the doubter on the terms the doubter set and offers the wounds for the healing of his unbelief. “Stop doubting and believe” runs, word for word in the Greek, stop becoming unbelieving; become believing. The same patient mercy that spoke Mary’s name in the garden now reaches out toward Thomas’s faithless hand.

We are never told that Thomas touched anything. Standing in front of the risen Christ who had heard every word he said behind a shut door, he has no use for his conditions, and he falls into the sentence the book was written to draw out of a man. My Lord and my God (ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου) ho Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou, pronounced ho KOO-ree-os moo kai ho the-OS moo. Strong's G2962, Lord, master; used of Yahweh. Thomas’s cry is the highest confession in the Fourth Gospel, and it lands where John has been driving since his first line: “the Word was God” (1:1). Kyrios means Lord and Master, and in the Greek Old Testament it stands in for the divine name, YHWH. Theos is God. Thomas is doing more than granting that Jesus is alive; he addresses the risen, wounded Christ as his sovereign Lord and his very God, and Jesus receives the worship rather than refusing it. The two possessive pronouns carry the weight. Not the Lord and the God in the abstract. My Lord and my God. This house will not treat that sentence as an open question with two respectable sides, for Article 4 is closed: Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. The Gospel that opened by declaring the Word to be God now closes its argument with a man on his knees confessing that same God present in the scarred and living body of Jesus. . Jesus takes the worship and lets it stand. Then He looks past Thomas toward every reader of this Gospel: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” The wounds Thomas saw are written down so that we who will never see them can believe through the seeing of others, and that beatitude is the door John leaves open as he finishes.

John 20:30–31 (BSB)

³⁰ Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.

John lays his pen down and tells us why he ever picked it up. There were many other signs, and he chose these so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. The faith he asks for is the faith Thomas spoke, and the life he wants for you is the risen One’s own life, given to everyone who believes. The empty tomb, the spoken name, the wounded hands, the confession, all of it is aimed at one thing, that a reader who has never seen any of it would kneel where Thomas knelt and say, My Lord and my God.