CYOA - John 20:1-10 - Iconic

John 20:1-10

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 Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

³ So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴ Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. ⁸ Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹ (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰ Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

I stood in the line up one morning, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the old city of Jerusalem, to enter the tomb of Jesus. I was in line with nuns, orthodox Christians holding candles, and tourists. Three people were allowed into the tiny space at a time. I crouched to fit through the small stone archway. Inside was a nun kneeling on the floor with her cheek pressed against the stone where Jesus’ body was once buried. She was clutching the cross on her rosary. Iconic pictures of Jesus covered the wall space. The stone was sloped towards the floor, no longer even but worn away by the hands of pilgrims. I pressed my check against the stone also and felt like I was somehow connected to all the believers who had touched that stone before. In the moment, their belief strengthened my belief.

On one of our study excursions in Israel, I was asked by our professor to be her volunteer as she spoke about burial. We found a site where there were tombs carved into the senonian chalk hillside with preparations tables before them. The professor had me lay on the preparation table as she spoke about they way bodies would be wrapped in cloth and spread with spices and fragrant oils. Then she asked me to lie in the tomb, where I stayed for the remainder of the dialogue on family bones. The tomb was narrow and shallow. My clothes became covered in chalk residue and I breathed in the disturbed dust where so many others had been laid to rest.

Silas’ posted the question “do you truly believe in the resurrection?” Only six weeks after my Israel experience, upon my first reading of this passage I thought to myself, so what, big deal. I was there, I saw, I felt, and yet I deny. Currently it is the belief that others hold in this event that has me mystified. I am shaken by Mary Magdalene’s concern for the whereabouts of her Lord, the rush of the disciples to the scene and the endless line-up in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher daily from morning till night. People want to see, but I would rather close my eyes. I want to close my eyes as we deny the resurrection.