Virgin Tomb

It occurs to me that I could add some to this post on the new birth of Jesus as his resurrection.

While Luke mentions it John’s description seems more vivid:

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

It is hard not to notice that it seems important to John that we know this grave had never been used before. It is reminiscent of how the Bible describes Rebekah when Abraham’s servant is seeking for a wife:

The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known.

Birth is a repeated theme in John’s Gospel. While the virgin birth (or rather, normal birth but virgin conception) is never mentioned, it is alluded to by it’s absence:

Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.

Jesus’ opponents had their own ideas of the origins of Jesus. They claimed he was a Samaritan–which means they were saying something rather harsh about Jesus’ mother (8.48).  They also, at least one other time, accused someone who sided with Jesus of being a bastard or born in some other corrupt way (John 9.34).

Specifying a Samaritan parentage also reminds readers of the Samaritan woman (John 4) and thus of Rebekah and Rachel who both were first introduced to the possibility of marriage at a well. Those matriarchs of Israel received water but Jesus is going to do a greater work than Jacob by rolling away the stone and releasing the life of the Spirit (see Genesis 29.1-10). John 4 starts with Jesus’ baptisms causing trouble so that he must travel through Samaria. This firmly connects it to John 3. We go from the need for a new birth (John 3) to the need for a new husband (John 4).

Ultimately Jesus is the one who goes through the new birth in order to give us ours:

So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you (John 16.17-22)

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  1. Pingback: Mark Horne » Blog Archive » Rebirth = metaphor; resurrection = reality

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