resurrection according to John, and we heard how the Lord was looked for by
SERMON 229L
PREACHED ON THE THURSDAY AFTER EASTER
Date: after 412
Look how the angels didn't show themselves to Peter and John, and showed themselves to a woman
1. From today's reading of the gospel we were given the account of the Lord's resurrection according to John, and we heard how the Lord was looked for by the disciples, and not found in the tomb, though it was the women who told them about this, not believing that he had risen, but that he had been stolen from the tomb. But that two of the disciples came, John the evangelist himself (he's meant, you see, by the one whom Jesus loved) and with him Peter, and that they went in, and saw the grave clothes only, but not the body—well, what does it say about John himself? If you noticed, He entered, it says, and saw, and believed. This believed that you hear isn't the praiseworthy sort of faith; after all, both true and false things can be believed. I mean if his faith had been the praiseworthy sort, or recommended to us where it's written, he saw, and be¬ lieved, scripture wouldn't go on to say, For he did not yet know the scriptures, that it was necessary for Jesus to rise again from the dead (Jn 20:8-9).
So he saw and believed-, so what did he believe? What did he believe, but what the woman had said, that the Lord had been taken away from the tomb? She had said, you see, They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and / do not know where they have put him (Jn 20:2). Those two ran, they went in, they saw the grave clothes alone, no corpse; and they believed that he had vanished, not that he had risen again. They saw he wasn't in the tomb.1 The men believed he had been taken away, and went away; the woman stayed, and began to seek the body of Jesus with tears, began to weep at the sepulchre; they cared less, being the stronger sex, but having less affection. Woman was looking more for Jesus, because she had been the first to lose Jesus in paradise;2 because it was through her that death had entered, she was looking for life more seriously than they were. J
And yet for all that, how was she looking? As for the body of a dead man, not for the imperishability of the living God; because not even she believed that the reason the body wasn't in the tomb was that the Lord had risen. She went in