The resurrection

Sunday morning, early, while it was still dark. In John's telling, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb alone and found the stone moved. She didn't go in. She ran to Peter and the other disciple and told them someone had taken the body. Luke tells it differently: a group of women, Mary Magdalene among them, went with the spices they'd prepared, walked in, and found no body. Two men in dazzling clothes asked them why they were looking for the living among the dead. The accounts share the same core and differ at the edges, and this retelling isn't going to tidy that up.

In both Gospels, the men didn't believe the women. Luke says their report sounded like nonsense to the eleven. Peter ran to the tomb anyway. In John, Peter and the other disciple both ran, the other one got there first and stopped at the entrance, Peter went straight in, and they found the linen wrappings lying there with the face cloth folded up separately. John says the other disciple saw and believed, and in the same breath admits that neither of them yet understood the scriptures about rising from the dead. Then they went home.

Mary stayed. She stood outside the tomb crying, bent to look in, and saw two angels sitting where the body had been. They asked why she was weeping. She said someone had taken her Lord. Then she turned round and there was a man standing there, and she took him for the gardener. He asked the same question. She asked him, if he'd moved the body, to tell her where, and she'd go and get it. He said her name. Mary. That was all it took. She said, Teacher. He told her not to hold on to him, because he hadn't yet gone up to the Father, and sent her to tell the others. So the first person to see Jesus alive, and the first to be sent to tell anyone, was a woman whose testimony wouldn't have counted in a court of the time.

Luke, meanwhile, follows two other disciples, walking to a village called Emmaus that same afternoon. A stranger fell in step with them and asked what they were discussing. One of them, Cleopas, was almost sarcastic: are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's happened? They told him about Jesus, the crucifixion, and the strange reports from the women. We had hoped, they said, that he was the one. Luke says their eyes were kept from recognizing him. The stranger told them they were slow, and walked them through the scriptures from Moses onwards, explaining why the Christ had to suffer.

At the village he acted as if he'd go on. They pressed him to stay, since it was getting late. At the table he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and handed it to them, and in that moment they knew him. Then he was gone. They looked at each other and said, weren't our hearts burning while he talked? They walked the seven miles back to Jerusalem in the dark and found the eleven already saying: he's really risen, and he's appeared to Simon. Luke never describes that appearance to Peter. It's just reported.

That evening, in both Gospels, he was suddenly in the room. The doors were locked, John says. Luke says they were terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. He said, peace be with you, and showed them his hands and his side (John) or his hands and feet (Luke). Luke adds that they still couldn't believe it for sheer joy, so he asked if they had anything to eat, and they gave him a piece of grilled fish, and he ate it while they watched. Whatever this body was, it could arrive through a locked door and also eat fish. The Gospels don't explain it. They report it.

Thomas wasn't there. When the others told him, he set his terms: unless I see the nail marks and put my finger in them and my hand in his side, I won't believe. A week later Jesus came again, doors locked again, and went straight to Thomas. Here, put your finger here. Don't be unbelieving. Thomas didn't need to do it. He said, my Lord and my God, which is the most direct thing anyone calls Jesus in the whole Gospel. And Jesus said something for everyone who'd come after: blessed are the ones who haven't seen and have believed.

John ends the chapter by saying there was a lot more he didn't write down, and that he wrote these things so that you might believe. Luke ends with Jesus explaining the scriptures one more time, telling them to wait in the city for power from on high, and then being taken up from them at Bethany while he blessed them. They went back to Jerusalem full of joy. Not long before, they had been hiding behind a locked door.