Welcome to another week of Things Unseen.

Last week in our minds we were kind of walking towards Calvary and watching some of the people that Jesus encountered on the road.

This week I thought it might be appropriate and helpful,

I hope, to continue that walk and to think about some of the people who encountered Jesus after his

resurrection. If John wrote his gospel when he was an older man, he probably assumed most of his

readers were familiar with at least

one of the other Gospels.

But many of his earliest readers would not have been born at the time of the crucifixion.

They belonged to the second generation of Christians.

Perhaps not many of those who had personally met the risen Christ were still alive.

And he wants them to feel the wonder of what happened, and so he lingers on some parts of

the Easter story in particular.

And his account has all the marks of authenticity, doesn't it?

Think of the way he describes Mary Magdalene coming back to the garden tomb in the darkness.

She sees the stone that covered the entrance has been moved.

She rushes to Peter and to John to tell them the body of the Lord has been taken away.

Did they believe her? They ran to the tomb.

John got their first looked in, saw the grave clothes lying there.

Peter soon arrived, but he didn't merely look in.

He ran straight past John and went in and he apparently saw something more.

And then John went in and believed and the truth was beginning to dawn.

But by the time Mary Magdalene had come back to the garden, the two disciples had gone home.

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