If you’re feeling disconnected from your faith at home, create a prayer and reflection corner where you can meditate on Yochanan 20:31-42. Make it a point to read through these verses daily. Write down prayers for any doubts or burdens you’re carrying and seek God’s reassurance. Consider journaling your thoughts, reflecting on how believing He is risen from the dead impacts how you live each day.

Yeshua’s Side Pierced

20 ³¹ It was Preparation Day, and the Judeans did not want the bodies to remain on the stake on Shabbat, since it was an especially important Shabbat. So, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies removed.

Preparation Day. The day before a Shabbat or festival is when food is cooked and other preparations made, since no work is to be done on the holyday itself. This particular Preparation Day was also the first day of Pesach (see 18:28). But may one cook for Shabbat on a festival day? Yes; the halakhah requires an eruv tavshilin, a special agreement allowing cooking for Shabbat on the festival day, provided it began before the festival. The Judeans did not want the bodies to remain on the stake after nightfall (when the Shabbat, or any next day, begins), because of Deuteronomy 21:22–23. An especially important Shabbat, or, possibly: “Shabbat HaGadol” (the “Great Sabbath”); since the Greek text reads, “great was the day of that Shabbat.” Obviously, the Shabbat of Pesach week, when millions of Jews were in Yerushalim on pilgrimage, would have been important.

³² The soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been put on a stake beside Yeshua, then the legs of the other one; ³³ but when they got to Yeshua and saw that He was already dead, they didn’t break His legs. ³⁴ However, one of the soldiers stabbed His side with a spear, and at once blood and water flowed out. ³⁵ The man who saw it has testified about it, and his testimony is true. And he knows that he tells the truth, so you too can trust.

The man who saw it. Either Yochanan is writing of himself in the third person, or friends are affirming his honesty, as at 21:24. The purpose of reporting that Yeshua actually did die is the same as the purpose of the whole Gospel (20:31) – so that you too can trust.

³⁶ For these things happened in order to fulfill this passage of the Tanakh: “Not one of His bones will be broken.” ³⁷ And again, another passage says, “They will look at Him whom they have pierced.”

Yeshua’s Burial

³⁸ After this, Yosef of Ramatayim, who was a talmid of Yeshua, but a secret one out of fear of the Judeans, asked Pilate if he could have Yeshua’s body. Pilate gave his consent, so Yosef came and took the body away. ³⁹ Also Nakdimon, who at first had gone to see Yeshua by night, came with some seventy pounds of spices—a mixture of myrrh and aloes.

Yosef of Ramatayim (Matityahu 27:57, Mark 15:43, Luke 23:50) and Nakdimon (Yochanan 3:1, 7:50) were two highly placed Messianic Jews, both members of the Sanhedrin (Luke 23:50–51, Yochanan 7:50–52); both secret Believers. Yochanan does not disparage them for hiding their faith. But their period of secrecy was brief, for the act reported here made their beliefs known. While no one is required to make a public announcement of his convictions the moment he comes to faith, he should, after gaining enough knowledge to defend his views (1 Kefa 3:16), be willing to set fear aside and stand openly with Yeshua the Messiah.

⁴⁰ They took Yeshua’s body and wrapped it up in linen sheets with the spices, in keeping with Judean burial practice.

They took Yeshua’s body and wrapped it in linen sheets. It continues to be Jewish burial practice to wrap the body in a shroud, but spices no longer are. Spices help slow the body’s rapid deterioration in a hot climate and may serve an embalming function.

⁴¹ In the vicinity of where He had been executed was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been buried. ⁴² So, because it was Preparation Day for the Judeans, and because the tomb was close by, that is where they buried Yeshua.

The garden was apparently somewhat elaborate; note the mention of a gardener in 20:15. Garden burials are recorded in the Tanakh (Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:18; Amon in 2 Kings 21:26). Sabbath was rapidly approaching, when all work ceased, including that of carrying spices or transporting a corpse. Thus, we may see it as an instance of divine providence that the tomb was nearby.

The Empty Tomb

20 ¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Miryam from Magdala went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark. Here, it is definitely Sunday morning before dawn.

² So she came running to Shim‘on Kefa and the other talmid (Yochanan), the one Yeshua loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!” ³ Then Kefa and the other talmid started for the tomb. ⁴ They both ran, but the other talmid outran Kefa and reached the tomb first. ⁵ Stooping down, he saw the linen burial-sheets lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then, following him, Shim‘on Kefa arrived, entered the tomb and saw the burial-sheets lying there, ⁷ also the cloth that had been around his head, lying not with the sheets but in a separate place and still folded up. ⁸ Then the other talmid, who had arrived at the tomb first, also went in; he saw, and he trusted.

The burial clothes consisted of a shroud around the body and a headcloth (compare 11:44). Yochanan’s painstaking description of their undisturbed location, especially the separate position of the still folded headcloth (v. 7), tells us that Yeshua’s body was miraculously loosed from the burial clothes, so that they collapsed in place. This is why the other talmid … saw, and he trusted.

⁹ (They had not yet come to understand that the Tanakh teaches that the Messiah has to rise from the dead.) [1]

The Tanakh teaches that the Messiah must rise from the dead in Isaiah 53:9–12 and Psalm 16:10 (cited at Acts 2:24–32).

At work, you might face ethical dilemmas that challenge your integrity. Perhaps you feel pressured to cut corners or participate in gossip. To combat this, commit to praying each morning before heading in. Ask God for guidance on how to act with integrity and uphold your Messianic values, even when it’s uncomfortable. When faced with challenging situations, remember that your actions reflect Yeshua, and choose to be a beacon of honesty and morality in your workplace.

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[1] Yochanan 20:31 – 21:9