Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.

John 20:4-7

It’s always amusing how John appears to manage to work in a bit of a running race to his recount on the morning of the Lord’s resurrection. It seems rather off topic or lacking in focus but there’s a humanness and a level of detail to John’s account that we can appreciate.

These two men were real people, not just characters in a novel. And over the last little while, as they say colloquially – some stuff has seriously gone down.

Whether John was feeling tentative or deferring to Peter as the elder of the two is unknown – and does it matter anyway? What matters is that these two men are eyewitnesses to the empty tomb. At whatever point they entered the tomb they both saw and could report the same thing:

The linen was lying there. The head cloth was there. They were separate from each other.

That’s odd, right? Who steals a dead body but takes off the grave clothes first?

Whether Peter – who went in first – realised it or not, but that was a dead giveaway clue (sorry, had to be phrased like that). Although at this stage, he doesn’t appear to have put the bits of information right in front of him together.

But he will…

Give him time and he’ll get there. You can imagine that much like Mary Magdalene, Peter and John were experiencing emotional trauma.

These days we’d probably say that they need a few sessions of therapy to break down the memory blockers and help them put the puzzle together. And maybe so.

There’s also the help of the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised to send them after he had gone away and come back again.

Which he’s just done. They’re just yet to realise it.

But they will…

Yours putting the pieces together,

Alison