For the Lord’s Day (171)

He is not here, for He has risen, as He said.  Come, see the place where He lay.  (Matthew 28.6)

And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed.  You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has risen; He is not here.  See the place where they laid Him.”  (Mark 16.6)

He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and, on the third day, rise.  (Luke 24.6-7)

Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for, as yet, they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead.  (John 20.8-9)

 

For the Lord’s Day (116)

For I delivered to you, as of first importance, what I also received: that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)

 

Mary, on Resurrection Morning

The presence of angels was a trifle to Mary, who had only one thought – the absence of her Lord.  Surely, that touch in her unmoved answer, as if speaking to men, is beyond the reach of art.  She says “My Lord” now, and “I know not,” but, otherwise, repeats her former words, unmoved by any hope caught from John.  Her clinging love needed more than an empty grave and folded clothes and waiting angels to stay its tears, and she turned indifferently and wearily away from the interruption of the question to plunge, again, into her sorrow.  Chrysostom suggests that she “turned herself,” because she saw, in the angels’ looks, that they saw Christ suddenly appearing behind her; but the preceding explanation seems better.  Her not knowing Jesus might be accounted for by her absorbing grief.  One who looked at white-robed angels, and saw nothing extraordinary, would give but a careless glance at the approaching figure, and might well fail to recognize Him.  But, probably, as in the case of the two travellers to Emmaus, her “eyes were holden,” and the cause of non-recognition was not so much a change in Jesus as an operation on her.

Be that as it may, it is noteworthy that His voice, which was immediately to reveal Him, at first suggested nothing to her; and even His gentle question, with the significant addition to the angels’ words, “Whom seekest thou?” which indicated His knowledge that her tears fell for some person dear and lost, only made her think of Him as being “the gardener,” and, therefore, probably concerned in the removal of the body.  If He were so, He would be friendly; and so she ventured her pathetic petition, which does not name Jesus (so full is her mind of the One, that she thinks everybody must know whom she means), and which so overrated her own strength in saying, “I will take Him away.”  The first words of the risen Christ are on His lips yet to all sad hearts.  He seeks our confidences, and would have us tell Him the occasions of our tears.  He would have us recognize that all our griefs and all our desires point to one Person – Himself – as the one real Object of our “seeking,” whom finding, we need weep no more.

From: “The Resurrection Morning,” a sermon on John 20:1-18, reprinted in Expositions of Holy Scripture by Alexander Maclaren; reprint (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932), 11:305-306.  Expositions of Holy Scripture was originally published in 32 volumes (1904-1910).

Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) pastored Portland Baptist Chapel in Southampton, England (1846-1858) and Union Baptist Chapel in Manchester, England (1858-1903).

 

The Resurrection

What really happened?  If we say that the resurrection of Christ was the transformation of His body into something of a new order altogether, we are dealing with phenomena beyond our experience.  But, it is for our health to remember that all phenomena are not, yet, within our ken – that the known is, in fact, the merest margin of the unknown.  The resurrection body of Jesus, according to the gospel records, while it could be adapted to ordinary physical conditions, was not subject to them; it could be materialized and dematerialized at will.  And, this portrayal is in harmony with the Pauline doctrine of the spiritual body which is to replace the natural body, when “mortality is swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4).

That a man should rise from the dead after three days is, as we have said, certainly improbable; but we are not concerned here with a man, but with this man.  There are many other things recorded of this man which, in isolation, are equally improbable – His virginal conception, His life and works – but, in Him, all these improbabilities coincide.  Does the coincidence of improbabilities amount to sheer impossibility, so that we conclude the picture is a cunningly wrought invention?  Or, is the picture that of God incarnate, in whom the “improbabilities” coincide like a threefold cord that is not quickly broken?  That God incarnate should enter human life by a unique way (“conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary,” as the ancient creed says) is not impossible, but perfectly fitting.  That God incarnate should live a life of perfect holiness, marked by works of miraculous power and teaching of pre-eminent wisdom, is not improbable, but just what we should expect.  That God incarnate should die – there is something, in the highest degree, amazing.  Die He did, none the less; but, this could not be the end.  When we have seen this act in the drama of our salvation, we wait breathlessly for the sequel and greet it as something divinely natural: this is the one “whom God raised up, loosing the bonds of death, because it was not possible that death should hold Him fast.”

From: The Dawn of Christianity by F. F. Bruce (London: The Paternoster Press, 1950), pp. 75-76.

Frederick Fivie Bruce (1910-1990) was a prolific New Testament scholar, the author of many books, articles, and commentaries, including his landmark commentary on the Greek text of Acts, published in 1951.