Racing toward the garden behind...
Illustration
Racing toward the garden behind John, Peter felt disbelief rising within him on a tide of intense anger. "Surely Mary is mistaken," he thought. "Surely they haven't taken our Lord's body, denying us the opportunity to give him a respectful burial." As they neared the garden, Peter tried to sort out in his mind who, if it were true, could have done such a thing. He knew the tomb had been guarded by Pilate's soldiers. Therefore, the only persons with authority to remove the body would have to have been acting on Pilate's behalf. That made no sense at all. In fact, Peter understood that the last thing the Romans wanted was for Jesus' body to disappear! Preventing that was why Pilate had set the guard in the first place. The same circumstance ruled out the Sanhedrin too; the last thing any of its members wanted was to have Jesus' remains unaccounted for, leaving open to speculation whether or not he had really died, or had actually risen from the dead. No, the Sanhedrin and the Romans definitely needed to have the Lord's body very much in evidence. "So, surely Mary was mistaken," Peter thought again as he and John ran down the last few yards of the path. Then, in the dimness of dawn's first light, Peter's eyes widened with astonishment. The stone which had closed the tomb had been rolled to one side! And John cried out in agony, "He's not here! He's gone!" Peter raced past John to see for himself. "Who could have done this? Who would have done this?" he asked himself. "And why leave the grave clothes behind? Unless ..." As the sun continued to erase night's shadows, the tentative stirrings of new hope began to erode his lingering doubts. "Could it be," he asked himself, "that our Lord, the Son of God, has truly risen from the dead?" -- Fannin
