From Observation

1 Cor. 10:¹¹ “The things that happened to those people are examples. They were written down to teach us, because we live in a time when all these things of the past have reached their goal.” (NCV)

If you look closely at John 20:1-2 and at how the whole thing panned out, you would realize that these people had no expectations. They came and saw the stone had been rolled away and they still did not think Jesus was resurrected. Instead, they thought someone had stolen His body. They probably thought, even after these people have killed Him, they still would not let Him rest. The first thing they did was to run to Peter and the other disciple, John. Why do you think they ran to Peter and to John? By inference, Peter and John assumed the leadership of the disciples. So, the women ran to them because these are our leaders, these are the people that were closest to Jesus, and these were the people in His inner circle. Why didn’t they look for Thomas or Bartholomew? You should ask yourself those questions when you read the scriptures.

John 20:^3-4 “Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb. They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.” We started out at the same time, in other words, Peter was not walking and John running. John must let us know that he is faster than Peter but of what eternal value is that information? Can you think of any? You would notice that this is a constant trend in the Book of John. We see it when John had to tell us he was the one with the connections to get Peter into the courtyard. In other words, Peter does not know anybody in this community, I am the homeboy. Peter does not even know the name of the man whose head he almost cut off. His name was Marcus and it was Marcus’s cousin that identified Peter in the courtyard. John was an old man when he wrote the Book of John. I can imagine him sitting down at his old age and writing, ‘I outran Peter’. Interestingly, God is not even angry with that. God does not want us to be prideful and I am not sure that John was prideful. I just think he wanted to let us know. Some two thousand years down the line, people are going to read this and for the records I want them to know that I got to the tomb before him.

John 20:^5-6 “He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there.” Why do you think John waited outside even though he arrived at the tomb before Peter? And when Peter got there, why do you think he disregarded the precautions that John was taking and dashed in? It is because John still deferred to Peter, in fact, if you read the Book of Acts of the Apostles, you will see that John and Peter were inseparable. They went everywhere together. But throughout the Book of Acts, you would not hear a single word from John. Once they were together, John never spoke, Peter always spoke. Peter was a much older man; John was the boy among them some say he was a teenager. So, even though he outran Peter maybe because he was younger or faster or more athletic, he still deferred to Peter. This is deeply instructive!

Prayer: Father, I ask for the grace to believe You will do what You say, in Jesus Name. Amen!