12.11 | Folded
John 20:1-18
‘Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.’
John 20:6-7
“If you want to change the world,” said Admiral McRaven in his commencement address to the University of Texas in 2014, “start by making your bed.” Changing the world, he suggested, begins not in huge actions, but often it begins in the small ones. The simple act of making the bed decisively leaves behind the sleep of the night, readying you for a day of committed intentionality to living as one fully awake. Such small acts of intentionality ready the soul for day of living more greatly into each moment and each task of the day. By such intentionality, McRaven told those students, the world is changed.
There’s a tiny line as we wake to resurrection realities in today's reading that makes me smile. And, in its little detail, gives a little insight into resurrection living and the Way of Jesus as He now walks the victory road. It comes in one word:
Folded.
The face cloth—part of the grave clothes of Jesus—had been folded.
Grave clothes were strips of cloth, that bound a dead body, with a separate piece for the head. Taking them off would leave them crumpled and messy. And yet, Jesus, it seems—in those moments of private joy, as the world outside was waking to a new reality and the King of heaven sat up in those grave clothes to the power of indestructible life—took the time not just to remove the face cloth, but to fold it neatly up.
Still somewhat searching for why, something in my heart delights in this.
Scholars will remind us that this detail is important, for the folding of the clothes made it impossible to assume that Jesus’ body was only absent from the tomb because grave robbers had stolen it. No robber would bother to fold up the cloth left behind.
This is true. And yet, it seems, there is something more precious in this little detail, that captures something of the unhurried ways of eternity in those first acts of our resurrected Lord.
For Jesus did not rush from that tomb. He did not run from it in fear or trauma. He was not in a hurry to begin the new life of eternity, reborn to a drivenness that had no time for savouring the minor details. Rather, in the beautiful simplicity of a peaceful heart—as one making a bed in the morning—He began the Resurrection Day with the simple act of folding up His grave clothes.
Resurrection is the new reality for every believer. That which we will know in the body in the future, we are now welcomed into as our internal reality. We were baptised into His death that we may live in His resurrection life.
Which means that the tone and tenor of Jesus’ every movement from that first breath onwards is formative upon us. It speaks of the leaving behind of every cloth of the grave—everything that has bound and restricted us, that has grieved and wounded us, that has made us live small and enslaved—to fold them up and leave them behind and walk free from them forever. It speaks of a new pace of being, where rush and hurry and anxiety and stress are replaced by the easy grace of eternity rhythms. It speaks of a lived intentionality into every moment, that views not merely our great moments, but our most simple ones as infused with the possibilities of the eternal.
There are days when I don’t make the bed in the morning. And yet, when I do, it’s not just Admiral McRaven’s words that come to mind. It is the image of Jesus, beginning the Resurrection Day with that simple, humble, and yet so deeply intentional action. For this day is a resurrection day. And we are invited—in all details, great and small—to fold up the cloths of yesterday, and to live in the expansive greatness of the resurrection way.
Reflect:
What grave clothes need folded and left behind today?
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Teach me the speed
Of eternity —
That my days, and my ways
Be measured
Not by my fears and strain and hurry,
But by the realities of resurrection.
Unbind me from those things that have tied me up,
Join me as we fold them,
And lead me through stony doorways
To angelic applause
Into the ways
And rhythms
And permanence
Of the Resurrection Way.
In Your Name,
Living Lord Jesus,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Ezekiel 24-25 | Proverbs 27:23-27