Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. – John 20:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 26, 2014): John 20

Once again we are waiting for Jesus’ return. John Hagee has suggested in “Four Blood Moons” that we should expect Jesus to return sometime between now (or actually this past April) and March 2015. Not to rub it in, but the Haggee prediction follows on the heels of the failed prediction of Grigori Rasputin (August 23, 2013), the 2012 end of the world phenomenon, the October 2011 phenomenon return of Christ hysteria (both of these dates were predicted by several different people), Pat Robertson’s prediction of April 27, 2007 – and the list of failed predictions for the end seems almost endless.

The problem is that there are apparently some things we just can’t expect to be able to predict – and even the Bible says that the Second coming of Christ is one of those things. And what we sometimes forget is that the first coming of Christ was also one of those unpredictable moments. As much as the prophecies around the coming of the Messiah had dominated the thoughts of the children of God, they just didn’t know when he was going to come.

So when the word of the empty tomb finally gets to the disciples, John and Peter simply take off running. They are desperately trying to figure out what it was that was happening, because as much as Jesus had predicted that he would rise again from the dead, that apparently was something that the disciples simply had not understood – or even really expected.

So Peter and John begin to run a race to the tomb. And John, maybe like a typical male specimen of the species, needs to tell us who won the race – he did. And as much as the rest of the events may have been a surprise to the disciples, the winner of the race really wasn’t. The winner of this foot race was something that we should have been able to predict. For starters, John is much younger than Peter. Peter is starting to suffer a little bit from the wear and tear of life. No, he isn’t real old, but he is beginning to age. And John was probably in the absolute prime of his life.

But it might also be that Peter was not fully into the race. He desperately wanted to see the empty tomb for himself; to believe that Jesus had risen just as he said that he would. But he is also very scared about the idea of meeting the risen Christ. As much as he wants to see his teacher, he also knows that he denied knowing him three times. And he is scared of what the teacher might say to him about his lack believe and faith in what Jesus had said. And the bottom line is that while we are not supposed to know that date of the second coming, Peter most likely in this moment, as his pace begins to slow, is thinking that he should have known that the grave would be empty. Just like the winner of this race was not a surprise, neither should the empty tomb have been much of a surprise.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: John 21