Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John

John 20:1–9

¹On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early in the morning, before darkness had dissipated, and she saw the stone removed from the tomb. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, «They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.» ³Peter went out with the other disciple and they went to the tomb. ⁴They were both running together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵And, having bent down, he saw the shrouds laid on the ground, but he did not go in. ⁶Simon Peter, who was following him, arrived in turn and entered the tomb. ⁷He saw the linen cloths lying on the ground and the cloth that covered Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in another place. ⁸Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and he believed. ⁹because they did not yet understand the Scripture, according to which he must rise from the dead.

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb very early in the morning, while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, «They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.» So Peter and the other disciple set out and went to the tomb. They were both running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was following him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in. He saw and he believed. Until then, in fact, the disciples had not understood that, according to Scripture, Jesus had to rise from the dead.

Discovering that the empty tomb is only the beginning: the Resurrection as a divine necessity and a personal invitation

How John 20:1-9 reveals that Easter is not a past event, but the key to all Christian life

Easter morning begins in darkness. Mary Magdalene runs, Peter runs, John runs. No one understands yet. And yet, in that silent tomb with its neatly folded burial cloths, something irreversible has just happened. This article is for anyone who has ever felt that the Christian faith rests on an event that we believe from afar, without truly experiencing it. Through John 20:1-9, we will enter the tomb with Peter and John, read the signs left there, and discover why John affirms with such moving simplicity: «He saw, and he believed.»

We will begin by situating this text within its Johannine and liturgical context, before analyzing its narrative and theological structure. We will then explore three major themes: the Paschal necessity according to Scripture, the divine pedagogy of the sign, and the dynamic of faith born in darkness. We will see how all of this applies concretely to the spiritual life of today, before concluding with a prayer, a meditation, and practical suggestions. The guiding principle is simple: the Resurrection is not merely a fact to be believed—it is a reality to be lived.

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On the morning of the first day: context, text and reading horizon

Entering the dawn of the new world

First, we must take the time to grasp the weight of this text within its context. John 20:1-9 is the opening of the Easter narrative in the fourth Gospel. After the Passion, recounted with almost surgical precision—the cross, the piercing with the lance, the blood and water, the burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus—the narrative resumes on the «first day of the week.» This formulation is not insignificant. It echoes Genesis: on the first day, God said, «Let there be light.» Here, on the first day of the new week, light bursts forth from a sealed tomb.

John is the most theological of the evangelists. Where Mark prioritizes action and Luke compassion, John constructs. He builds symbols, bursts of meaning, words that carry multiple layers of significance at once. This account is a perfect example. Everything is meaningful: the time ("still darkness"), the characters (Mary, Peter, the beloved disciple), the gestures (running, bending down, entering), and the objects (the stone, the linen cloths, the shroud).

Mary Magdalene is the first to appear. This woman, of whom Luke tells us that Jesus had cast out «seven demons» (Lk 8:2), is also the first to whom the Risen Lord will appear (Jn 20:11-18). Her early morning run in the darkness speaks of love: it doesn't calculate, it rises before dawn, it goes where it hurts. She finds the stone removed from the tomb. No body, no explanation. She runs to warn Peter and «the other disciple,» and her spontaneous interpretation is that of ordinary mourning: the body has been moved.

This account is read every year at Easter Mass in the Roman Rite. It is therefore intimately linked to the liturgical cry that Saint Paul proclaims in the opening antiphon: «Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed!» (1 Cor 5:7b). This resonance between John’s narrative text and Paul’s doctrinal cry is not accidental. It suggests that the Resurrection must be understood simultaneously as a historical event, a sacramental reality, and an existential invitation. This is the subject of this entire article.

The Greek text deserves some clarification. The verb "to see" appears three times in just a few verses, and it's not the same word each time. John uses βλέπει (blepei) for Mary, who observes the absence of the stone—this is a raw, factual vision. He uses θεωρεῖ (theōrei) for Peter, who enters the tomb and examines the burial cloths—this is a careful, analytical contemplation. And for the beloved disciple, he employs εἶδεν (eiden), an aorist form of the verb ὁράω—a vision that touches the inner self, that penetrates, that transforms. These nuances in the Greek are the key to understanding the passage. Three characters see the same thing. Only one believes. And this directly concerns us.

«"It was necessary": the Resurrection as the necessary fulfillment of Scripture

What does this little word mean, yet it carries the full weight of salvation?

The evangelist concludes his morning narrative with a sentence that might seem secondary but is in fact the theological heart of the entire passage: «For until then, the disciples did not understand that, according to Scripture, Jesus had to rise from the dead.» Let us pause on this «had to.» In Greek, it is δεῖ (dei), an impersonal verb that expresses divine necessity, the inevitability willed by God. This word recurs regularly in the Gospels to describe events related to the fulfillment of the plan of salvation: «The Son of Man must suffer many things» (Mark 8:31), «I must be in my Father’s house» (Luke 2:49), «This Scripture must be fulfilled» (Luke 22:37).

This «it was necessary» is not a cold inevitability, a blind destiny. It is the necessity of faithful love. God could not leave his Son in death, not because he was compelled to do so by an external force, but because death cannot have the last word over the One who is himself Life (Jn 14:6). This necessity has long been inscribed in Scripture. The disciples did not see it. The Resurrection opens their eyes.

What Scriptures does John have in mind? The text doesn't specify, and perhaps that's intentional. Early Christians read the Old Testament as a tapestry of prophecies and types pointing to the risen Christ. We think of Psalm 16:10: "You will not let your faithful one see decay." We think of Hosea 6:2: "After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up." We think of Jonah, explicitly mentioned by Jesus (Matthew 12:40): three days in the belly of the fish before being restored to the light. We think of the Suffering Servants of Isaiah 52-53, whose mysterious death bears fruit.

What John wants us to understand is that the Resurrection is not a divine improvisation in response to the failure of the cross. It is the culmination of a coherent plan, conceived from all eternity, and foretold in numerous ways throughout Scripture. The cross and the Resurrection are not two separate events, the second compensating for the horror of the first. They form a single Paschal Mystery, the Passover of Christ, the passage from death to life, the fulfillment of all the hope of Israel.

The disciples' incomprehension is not a weakness to be mocked—it is our mirror. How often have we stared at the empty tomb without understanding its meaning? How often have we experienced painful events that, in retrospect, reveal themselves as passages toward something greater? John's theological perspective on the Resurrection is an invitation to reread our own history in the light of the divine "it had to be done.".

Three ways of seeing: a pedagogy of faith inscribed in bodies

The race of Pierre and Jean, or the learning of observation

Let us return to the scene and observe its characters carefully. Peter and John run together toward the tomb. This running speaks of urgency, of life, of hope still vague. John arrives first—perhaps because of his youth, or the particular vivacity of those who love intensely. But he stops before the entrance. He bends down. He sees the burial cloths. He does not enter.

Peter arrives in turn. He goes straight in. This is typical of Simon Peter, whom we know well: he is the one who jumps into the water (John 21:7), the one who draws his sword (John 18:10), the one who enters without hesitation. He contemplates the linen cloths laid out, and that shroud—that strange and precise detail—rolled up separately, carefully placed in its proper position. The narrative does not yet tell us what Peter felt or understood. His inner reaction remains a mystery.

Then John enters. And there, the account simply says: "He saw, and he believed." No apparition, no angel, no words. Only empty cloths and a folded shroud. And that is enough for him. Why?

The Church Fathers meditated at length on this contrast. Saint John Chrysostom notes that the beloved disciple, «the one whom Jesus loved,» was particularly open to the inner light because his closeness to the Lord had trained him to discern differently. He did not merely have information about Jesus—he had a relationship with him. And it was this relationship that enabled him to interpret an empty tomb as a sign of life.

What the burial cloths convey is essential: a stolen body is not embalmed and then carefully undressed. A body that has escaped death by its own power does not need someone to remove its wrappings—it passes through them, just as the Risen One will later pass through closed doors (Jn 20:19). The arranged burial cloths are not a sign of abduction—they are the signature of a transformation. Jesus did not emerge from the tomb as Lazarus did (Jn 11), still bound in burial cloths, needing to be untied. He entered into a new mode of existence, one that death can no longer touch.

The shroud rolled up separately: the sign within the sign

This detail of the shroud deserves special attention, for John takes care to point it out with unusual precision. It is not simply "laid out" like the other cloths—it is "rolled up separately, in its proper place." This care in its arrangement is not insignificant in ancient Jewish culture. In the narratives of the Old Testament, covering one's head was a sign of mourning, shame, or death (2 Samuel 15:30; Esther 6:12). Removing the veil from one's head was an act of liberation.

But there is more. In rabbinic tradition, some scholars note that a master who had finished his meal would roll up his napkin and leave it on the table to signify, «I will return.» A master who would not return would leave his napkin crumpled, indicating that the meal was definitively over. If this tradition is accurate—and several exegetes cite it cautiously—the shroud rolled up separately would be like a silent message from the Risen Christ to his disciples: «I will return.»

Whether this interpretation is historically certain or merely suggestive, it illustrates something true about how Johannine Revelation works: the signs are there, carefully arranged, for those who have eyes to see. The Resurrection is not imposed by force. It allows itself to be read by those who are willing to believe.

Seeing without understanding, believing without seeing everything: the horizon of adult faith

Verse 9 is perhaps the most challenging in the entire passage: «For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead.» John has just told us that the beloved disciple believed. And immediately afterward, he specifies that they had not yet understood the Scriptures. Is there a contradiction?

No—and this is precisely where something profound about the nature of faith is at stake. John suggests that the beloved disciple believed before he understood. His faith is not based on a complete intellectual demonstration. It arises from an encounter—or rather, a trace of an encounter—and an openness of heart. The understanding of Scripture will come later, as it will for all the disciples after Pentecost, enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

This is a fundamental lesson for the Christian life. Faith doesn't wait to have all the answers before setting out. It moves forward in the partial darkness, like John entering an empty tomb, guided not by intellectual certainty but by love and openness. Understanding follows. Always. But it does follow. "Seek to understand in order to believe," Augustine said, in a sense, before qualifying it: "Believe in order to understand"—fides quaerens intellectum. Both poles are necessary, and John 20 beautifully illustrates their fruitful tension.

What Easter changes for everyday life

When the Resurrection touches ordinary life

It would be too easy to leave Easter as a mere celebration of profound truths, observed once a year in a flower-adorned church, and then resume the ordinary course of existence as if nothing had changed. John 20:1-9 does not allow us this option. This text is an irruption into reality, and it calls for a conversion of perspective that encompasses all dimensions of life.

In personal and spiritual life. The first implication is an invitation to revisit our relationship with darkness. Mary Magdalene sets out into the darkness. She doesn't yet know what she will find. But she sets out. How often do we give up on prayer, on spiritual exploration, on confession, on repentance, because "it's pointless" or "I don't feel anything anyway"? Easter teachings tell us: go into the darkness. That is where God awaits you. The empty tomb is visible only to those who have walked to it.

In relationships. Peter and John do not run alone—they run together, alerted by Mary's testimony. Christian faith is born in community and is transmitted through witness. The Easter Church is a Church in motion, a Church that runs, that shares news, that gathers around the empty tomb to read together the signs of life. Every human relationship touched by Easter faith can become the place where we say to one another: «The Lord is alive, and this is what that means for us.»

In professional and social life. The Resurrection is an affirmation that death does not have the final word. This also applies to our failures, our aborted ventures, our shattered projects, our ruined careers. The man or woman of Easter faith is the one who knows that even what seems definitively buried can experience a form of resurrection—not by magic, but because God is the master of "it had to be" and can draw something new from death.

In intellectual and cultural life. John notes that the disciples "did not understand the Scriptures." The Resurrection is also an invitation to reread, to delve deeper, not to be content with a superficial understanding of the faith. The Easter Christian is a man or woman who rereads Scripture in the light of the empty tomb, who discovers new meanings within it, who is constantly amazed by the coherence of the divine plan.

In liturgical and sacramental life. Saint Paul reminds us in the entrance antiphon that «Christ is our Passover lamb.» The Mass is not simply a memorial—it is a real participation in the Paschal Mystery. Every Eucharist is an empty tomb revisited, a broken loaf that proclaims that death is conquered. To enter the liturgy with this awareness is to transform habit into encounter.

Tradition has been saying the same thing for twenty centuries: patristic and theological resonances

What the great witnesses of the faith saw in this tomb

The Church Fathers commented on this text with remarkable depth, and their insights remain surprisingly fresh.

Origin In the 3rd century, the great Alexandrian exegete saw in the two disciples' journey an image of two paths to faith: the path of contemplative reason (John, who stops and observes) and the path of direct action (Peter, who enters). Neither is sufficient on its own. Christian faith integrates both—it contemplates and it acts, it pauses before the sign and it enters into it.

Saint John Chrysostom Chrysostom (4th-5th century), in his homilies on John, elaborates at length on the significance of the beloved disciple's "seen and believed." For Chrysostom, this is the mark of a soul purified by love. John was the disciple closest to the Lord—he had rested on his breast at the Last Supper. This intimacy gave him a keenness of vision that others did not yet possess. This was not a matter of merit or superior intelligence; it was the fruit of the relationship.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (5th century) develops a masterful reflection on faith and understanding based on this text. In his Tractatus in Johannem, he notes that seeing without believing is the condition of many witnesses to the public life of Jesus. Believing without having seen is the beatitude promised to future generations (Jn 20:29). But believing by seeing signs—that is, by reading reality as theophany—is the precise position of the beloved disciple. For Augustine, we are all called to this sacramental reading of reality.

Saint Thomas Aquinas In the 13th century, in his Catena Aurea and his commentary on the Gospel of John, John insisted on the necessity of the Resurrection in light of divine justice. It was not "fitting" (conveniens) for Him who is Truth to remain under the dominion of the ultimate lie, which is death. The Resurrection is the manifestation of the victory of truth over sin, of life over death, of light over darkness. This vocabulary of theological fittingness is important: it is not a mechanical necessity, but an aesthetic and moral necessity inscribed in the very nature of God.

Hans Urs von Balthasar (20th century), one of the most important Swiss theologians of our time, sees in Pascal's account of John the fulfillment of the entire logic of the Incarnation. The Word became flesh so that the flesh might be transfigured. The burial cloths left there are the signature of a transformation that does not destroy the body but glorifies it. Balthasar reads in them the outline of what we are all called to become: beings whose flesh will one day be transformed by the love of the Father.

Finally, Orthodox theology—particularly in the tradition of Saint John Damascene and Saint Maximus the Confessor—emphasizes the Resurrection as the answer to the corruption introduced by original sin. Death had entered human nature as a consequence of separation from God. The Resurrection of Christ mends this wound from within: by dying and rising again in our flesh, the Word heals our human nature of its tendency toward corruption. This is the theology of theosis—the divinization of humanity—of which Easter is the unshakeable foundation.

Lectio divina

Entering the tomb

A lectio divina of the text of John 20:1-9 for personal prayer

Christian meditation is not a relaxation technique. It is an encounter. Here's how to enter into this text not as an object of study, but as a space where God speaks to you.

First step — Silence and setup (5 minutes). Find a quiet place. Breathe slowly. Let go of the day's worries. Silently bring to mind a darkness in your current life—something like a tomb: a broken relationship, a failed project, a bereavement, a withered faith. Don't run from it. Stay with it.

Second step — Slow reading of the text (5 minutes). Read John 20:1-9 aloud, slowly, pausing on each image. The stone removed. The darkness. The race. The linen cloths. The shroud.

Third step — Identification (5 minutes). Which character are you this morning? Mary in the darkness, searching without understanding? Peter who enters without hesitation but remains silent? John who stops at the threshold, contemplates, and believes? There is no right answer. Each position is a gateway into the mystery.

Fourth step — The question of «it was necessary» (10 minutes). Pray with this phrase: "Jesus had to rise from the dead." Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you a "had to" in your own life—a painful passage that, in retrospect, was necessary for something new to be born.

Fifth step — The sign to read (5 minutes). Are there in your current life "clothes laid flat" — signs of God's presence that you have not yet been able to read? Ask the eyes of the beloved disciple.

Sixth step — The act of faith (5 minutes). Say silently, or aloud: "Lord, I want to see what you have allowed me to see. I want to believe where you invite me to believe. Even in the darkness. Even without understanding everything."«

Seventh step — Thanksgiving (5 minutes). Conclude by giving thanks for a specific aspect of your life where you have seen God at work. Anchor your Easter faith in the reality of your story.

The challenges that Easter poses to our time

When the world says "impossible" and faith says "it had to be done"«

Of all Christian dogmas, the Resurrection of Christ provokes the most resistance in contemporary culture. Not because it is morally difficult to accept, but because it directly challenges our dominant worldview, which is naturalistic and reductionist. Here are three major challenges and one way to address them directly.

First challenge: the historical question. Can we seriously claim, in the 21st century, that someone rose from the dead? The honest answer is: yes, if we take the time to examine the evidence. Serious historians—including non-believers like Bart Ehrman—acknowledge that something happened after Jesus' death that radically transformed his followers from terrified fugitives into preachers willing to die for their testimony. The empty tomb is attested to by multiple, independent sources. The appearances are reported by Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3–8) with wording that dates back to the early years after Jesus' death—long before any "legend" had time to form. The historian N.T. Wright, in his monumental study *The Resurrection of the Son of God*, concludes that the physical resurrection of Jesus is the most consistent explanation of all the available evidence.

Second challenge: the suffering of the world. If Christ is risen and has conquered death, why is there still so much suffering? This is the most human and legitimate objection. The Christian answer is not triumphalist: it recognizes that we are in the in-between, the space between the Resurrection of Jesus and the final resurrection of all. Christ has broken the power of death—but his kingdom is not yet fully manifested. We live in the tension between the "already" and the "not yet." And in this in-between, the Resurrection is not an answer that erases suffering—it is a presence that passes through it with us.

Third challenge: the privatization of faith. In a culture that confines religion to the private sphere, asserting that the Resurrection of Christ has public implications—political, social, and cultural—seems inappropriate. And yet, the first day of the week, which opens John 20, is also the first day of a new humanity. The Resurrection is not merely good news for individual believers: it is the affirmation that history has meaning, that violence does not have the final word, that love is stronger than hate. These affirmations have consequences. They imply a vision of humanity, society, and history that Christians cannot keep to themselves without betraying the Gospel.

Easter Prayer: at the open tomb of all our nights

A meditative prayer inspired by John 20:1-9

Lord Jesus, risen from the dead,

This morning, like Mary Magdalene, I wake up in the dark. Not at nightfall, but in the darkness of what I wear: the doubts that I dare not name, the grief I haven't finished processing, the prayers I abandoned, tired of waiting, the times I thought the tomb was closed forever.

You allow me this morning to run to your empty tomb. Like Pierre, I go in. I look. I see the linens laid there, the shroud carefully rolled up, and I'm starting to understand that you are not here — not because you have abandoned me, But because you made it through.

You have passed through death. As you passed through the stone. As you overcome all my fears, If I let you do it.

Teach me to read the signs you leave in my life. These unexpected moments of light in a dark week. This was a comment I overheard while rereading a text. This sudden peace in the midst of a conflict. This inexplicable link between my story and yours.

«"You had to rise again," said the evangelist. And I would add, very quietly, as far as I'm concerned: Something needs to be resurrected within me too. The joy I had put aside. The trust I had buried. The hope I thought was dead for good.

Give me the eyes of the beloved disciple. Those who see without yet fully understanding, those who believe before the demonstration is complete, those who read an empty tomb and recognize your signature there.

For you have told us that those who believe without having seen are blessed. Make me one of them. Not a naive believer who refuses to face reality, but a Pascalian believer, who looks at reality as it is — wounded, obscure, harsh — and who still chooses to say: The Lord is risen. He has truly risen from the dead. And that changes everything.

Hallelujah, even in the darkness. Hallelujah, even without understanding yet. Hallelujah, because you are alive and that death can do nothing against you.

Amen.

To summarize and go further

What the empty tomb asks us to do now

We have traveled a long way together this morning. We set out in the darkness with Mary Magdalene, we ran with Peter and John, we observed the linen cloths, contemplated the rolled-up shroud, and we paused before the most sober and most moving verse of this story: "He saw, and he believed."«

The Resurrection of Jesus is not a mere addition to the Christian faith. It is its very heart. Saint Paul stated this with radical clarity: «If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile» (1 Corinthians 15:17). John 20:1-9 shows us how faith in the Resurrection is born—not from a formal demonstration, but from an encounter with signs interpreted by a loving and open heart.

This text asks three things of us. First, to run—not to remain at home in our lukewarmness or skepticism, but to go to the tomb, to take the risk of looking. Second, to enter—not to remain at the threshold of the mystery, but to penetrate it, to examine the fabric of our own lives carefully. Third, to believe—to make that inner leap that says: «Even if I don’t understand everything, even if Scripture has not yet fully revealed itself to me, I recognize here the trace of the One who is alive.»

Easter is not an event of the past. It is the ongoing presence of the living God in our history. The question that John 20:1-9 poses to each of us is simple and demanding: what are you going to do with this empty tomb?

Seven steps to experience Easter all year round

• Reread John 20:1-9 every Sunday morning, asking yourself what "tomb" you are carrying this week and what God is placing there.
• Identify each week a "sign from the cloths" — an ordinary event that can be read as a trace of the Risen Christ's presence in your life.
• Memorize the central verse: "Jesus had to rise from the dead" and reread it in moments of discouragement or incomprehension.
• Practice lectio divina once a week on a text from the Old Testament that the disciples could have associated with the Resurrection: Ps 16, Hosea 6, Is 53, Jonah 2.
• Sharing with a loved one, once a month, a "paschal moment" of your life: an experience where you saw life born from an apparent death.
• Attending Mass with the awareness that the Eucharist is a real participation in the mystery of the empty tomb — not a mere memory.
• Read or reread the first letter of Peter (1 P 1, 3-9) to anchor the Easter joy in the reality of the daily spiritual battle.

References

Primary biblical sources — John 20:1-9 (basic text of the article) — 1 Corinthians 15:1-20 (Pauline theology of the Resurrection) — Psalm 16:8-11 (prophecy of incorruption) — Isaiah 52-53 (the suffering and glorified Servant)

Patristic and theological sources — Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies 85-86 (commentary on chapter 20) — Saint Augustine of Hippo, Tractatus in Johannem, Treatises 120-121 — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on John, chapter 20; ; Summa Theologica, IIIa q. 53-56 (On the Resurrection of Christ) — Hans Urs von Balthasar, Glory and the Cross, Volume IV (New Alliance), Lethielleux Publishers, 1986 — NT Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Fortress Press, 2003 (French translation: The Resurrection of the Son of God, (Éditions de l'Homme Nouveau, 2013)

Liturgical source — Roman Missal, Easter Sunday Mass — Opening antiphon from 1 Corinthians 5:7b-8a

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