“In our terrible state of mind,” John explained slowly, as if he had previously overestimated my intelligence, “and with Mary Magdalene’s words still fresh in our thoughts, we went to that tomb believing the body had been stolen. But all the evidence at the grave proved that it had not been stolen. Who would take a body from its grave, in the darkness of night, remove its long burial sheet packed with spices, and then rewind that sheet without spilling any of the spices and place it on the shelf again, as if it still contained a body? And who would be careful to replace the napkin on the shelf just where it would be if it were still on the head of Jesus? These were the questions that Peter and I could only answer with one name.”

“Who, John?”

“God!”

I should have known. “You mean that God removed the body of Jesus from his grave cloth without disturbing it?”

“For God, nothing is impossible.”

“Then tell me, why did God bother to roll away the stone? If the body was raised from the linens without disturbing them, couldn’t God have just as easily removed the body from the tomb without disturbing the stone?”

For only a fraction of a second, John’s eyes rolled helplessly toward Joseph of Arimathea. The old man remained silent.

“Why did God bother to move the stone, John?” I asked again.

“So that we, who had eyes but could not see, would have our vision restored along with our shaken faith—through the great silent witness of that empty tomb!”

I had no rebuttal, but I wasn’t satisfied, either. When I had raised the same points with Peter and insinuated that all the evidence had been manufactured to make it look like a resurrection instead of a grave robbery, Peter had lost his temper with me. And now John was talking about faith—and I wanted facts. Would I ever learn the truth? Weakly, I asked John, “What did you do next?”

“When I came out from the tomb, I knelt beside Peter and gave thanks to God for his greatest of miracles. Then Peter told me to go to Bethany, for he was certain that the others were there in the house of Martha and Mary. I was to tell them the good news about our Lord but also to warn them to say nothing to any man, for Peter was certain that our lives were still in danger and if it reached the high priest that we had visited the tomb, he would probably accuse us of removing the body so that we could seduce the people with our story of the resurrection.”

“Did you find the others?”