The Sound

part 1 of “RATTLE”

On this Easter morning, we remember an event unfold that sent a sound throughout the darkness of that morning. A sound that rattled the lives of people and the whole world. The sound that nothing is impossible for Jesus to overcome. Let’s look at this story together.

In John 20, we read about the dawn of that first Easter morning:

“Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.” - John 20:1 NLT

The first thing that I would like to draw attention to and that verse is the word “dark”. The word “dark“, I feel, has two meanings. The first meaning John could simply just be referencing the time of day. As we see the verse starts with “early on Sunday morning”, so John could just be saying it was dark. The second meaning is a little bit deeper. John could be describing the atmosphere present in town after Jesus’ death as dark and sorrowful and that there was this feeling of disappointment in the air.

After all, Jesus was supposed to be king in the minds of a lot of people and a week earlier that were welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-11). Jesus coming into Jerusalem was the fulfillment of many different prophecies. The people were excited. But then, less than a week after that celebration, Jesus was arrested and crucified. The time of celebration quickly turned to shock, sorrow, and disappointment. Jesus was supposed to be king! They had waited centuries for Jesus and He was finally here only to be killed.

Now on to the second part of that verse:

“the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.” - John 20:1 NLT

Can you imagine this? This was not a small stone that was covering the entrance of the tomb. But it could be moved by one person as Joseph of Arimathea is the one that closes the tomb (Matthew 27:59-61 + Mark 15:46). This could be done by one or two men because the stone was in a sloped groove that helped roll it into place. However, it would take several men to roll the stone back up the slope and this surely could not be done from the inside. This helped to keep people from stealing the body.[1] Also, the tomb had Pilate’s seal on it and guards to keep people -mainly the disciples- from stealing the body of Jesus. The Pharisees were concerned because they feared the disciples would steal the body to claim the resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 27:62-66). So how did that stone get moved? Well, with the sound.

Matthew’s gospel is the only one that indicates that there was an earthquake as an angel of the Lord came down and moved the stone (Matthew 28). But what if that wasn’t the sound. The other gospels, Mark, Luke, and John, indicate that the stone was already moved by the time the two Marys (Mark 16 + Luke 24) arrived there. John only talks of one Mary going to the tomb (John 20). This tells me that there was a different sound that moved that stone away from the entrance of the tomb.

The sound was the voice of Jesus telling that stone to move. As we looked at in the “How To Fight Your Battles” series, the Earth has to move when Jesus talks. In Genesis 1, we see the Earth being created with the sound of God’s voice. Jesus having “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18, NLT) when He wanted the stone to move all He had to do was tell it to roll away. When Jesus spoke to that stone it had to move at the sound of Jesus’ voice.

This was the sound of resurrection! But on this morning, this was not the only sound heard.

Mary was standing outside of the tomb looking in and wondering where they could have moved Jesus’ body too. She even says this to the angels that are present in the tomb. But then she turns to leave and she hears a sound (John 20:11-14). This sound was a voice and it said to her:

“Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?” – John 20:15, NLT

She responds to the voice with the same statement she said to the angels in the tomb wondering where the body of Jesus was. After she said this, the voice spoke to her again and this time it said her name:

“’Mary!’ Jesus said.” – John 20:16, NLT

It was then that she realized Who she had been talking to all this time. She had been talking to Jesus! This no doubt rattled Mary. She was not expecting Jesus to be standing there talking to her – even though He had said that He was going to rise on the third day. Mary and the others remembered this later. Then there was another sound.

The sound of the people beginning to talk about the fact that they had seen Jesus and talked with Jesus. This sound of people talking about the resurrection of Jesus and confirmed sightings of Him, no doubt rattled people who heard it. This was not a common thing to experience. They had never seen anything like this before. Jesus had come back to life and was appearing before them. Death had always been permanent. But Jesus took that thought and rattled it loose as He defeated death, hell, and the grave.

Death is no longer the end because the Resurrected Jesus says so!

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[1] The Bible Knowledge Commentary by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, pages 191-192.