Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus head not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself." (John 20: 6-7)
"How often has John given us the little details that are pregnant with meaning? They came to the burial site, and the burial garments which their Master had been wrapped by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus with all those spices were still there and not only so, but folded and with the face cloth folded up in a place by itself. Do you realize what this means? On the most stupendous morning in human history, God in the flesh woke up, took off his burial wrappings, and folded them. He made up His bed, if you will. He is that sort of God, not of confusion, but one who loves to do all things decently and in order.
St. John Chrysostom, the great commentator on John from the fourth and fifth centuries, writes, 'Now to separate and to place one thing by itself and another after rolling it up by itself was the act of someone doing things carefully and not in a chance way and as if disturbed.' You see, he sees the care given to the clothes as a sign that there absolutely was no grave robbery here, as the women might have feared. Rather, there's deliberate care setting aside what He no longer needed - clothes for burial. He is alive!"
Pr. Will Weedon
