Last night’s Keswick Speaker, Andy Prime, was very good – a gifted speaker bringing a message that both put its roots in the Bible and had a challenging edge rather than being just some cosy nuggets of information. His passage was John 20:1-10, where first Mary finds that the tomb is empty and then Peter and John observe the linen cloths in which the body of the crucified Christ had been wrapped.

I think he stepped a little too far in trying to find a meaning in the cloths though, diverting back to Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement. The Bible does have foreshadowings established that are fulfilled centuries later but, having pondered it and re-read the passages, I’m not sure we can draw a line connecting the linen garments the high priest wore when slaughtering the goat ‘devoted to the Lord’ and the linen burial cloths that Jesus (the ‘Lamb of God’) had been wrapped in. Not least, linen turns up frequently throughout the Bible in a whole range of contexts so I find it a bit hard to see a reliable link between those particular passages.

I do think John had the liberty of adjusting how he recounted his gospel so that there is more than just a simple narrative going on. For example, one feature is the seven ‘I Am’ sayings of Jesus, such as ‘I am the Good Shepherd’. There are also some differences in timings compared to the other gospels, such as the cleansing of the temple (early in John’s account, late in the others). However, while he is artful in his construction, I think he is still recounting things he has witnessed or heard about directly. The presence of the linen tell us in a very straightforward way that Jesus is not in the tomb and prepares us to meet the risen Christ. They don’t need a tenuous link back to Leviticus to do that.

Likewise, the fact it was still dark when Mary set out for the tomb can be simply explained by her wanting to get started on the task as early as possible, before the heat of the day or more people being around. Possibly John did think back to the words near the start of his account of how the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it (1:5) but I don’t think he would have insisted on it being dark if Mary had set off later.

One idea that I will hold onto was the thought that Jesus came from glory to serve us and then, after his resurrection, returned to glory. Prime referred to the pattern in the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet in John 13, where Jesus starts off at the head of the table, then girds himself as a servant to wash their feet before resuming his place as master of the table. John wrote what he witnessed but I can well accept that what Jesus did that evening was full of meaningful symbolism being deliberately acted out by the Lord for the instruction of his followers.