John 20:8-9 - Turning On the Light

At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, He said,

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ... But when Jesus said 'this temple,' he meant his own body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said.”  John 2:19, 21–22 (New Living Translation) 

Fast forward to Easter morning.

Mary Magdalene ran to tell Peter and John that the tomb was empty. Peter and John, in turn, had a foot race to the tomb to check out her story. John got there first, and stood outside the empty tomb, looking in.

When Peter arrived, he actually went into the tomb for a closer look. He saw the linen cloth Jesus had been wrapped in, lying there. But the face cloth had been neatly "rolled up in a place by itself." Otherwise, the tomb was empty. Nobody and no body. Jesus wasn't there to say, "Look! It's Me! I'm alive!"

But then we read that John 
"...also went in, and he saw and believed—for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead." John 20:8–9 (NLT) 

John saw the same thing Peter did, but John believed. It seems that it took a while longer for Peter.

Notice three things:
1. We all come to trust God in different ways, at different times.
2. Faith is ultimately tied to scripture.
3. God has to "turn on the light" for us to understand and believe.

May God guide us into deeper faith, to trust His word... to trust Him, when what we encounter seems to be little more than an empty tomb. Amen.