Mark 16:1-8 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices… Our Lord was already in His grave, but He was not covered with earth; He was not enclosed in a coffin, but merely lay in a recess hollowed out of the rock, where Joseph of Arimathaea had placed Him on the evening of Good Friday. Joseph had probably been forced to do His work hurriedly, in order to get it done before the Sabbath came on. He had been contented with wrapping the body in fair linen, and hastily covering it with some preparation that might preserve the bruised and mangled flesh from the rapid corruption that might naturally be looked for. Mary Magdalene and her companions came to complete what Joseph had begun — to rearrange with more care and attention to detail the position of the body in its last resting place, and while doing this to cover it with such preservatives against decomposition as to ensure its integrity for many years to come. Now, Mary Magdalene and her companions would have expected to encounter at least one difficulty, for they had watched the burial on the evening of Good Friday; they had even noted how the Lord's body was laid; they would have observed how, under the direction of Joseph of Arimathaea, the doorway which formed the entrance to the tomb had been closed up by a large stone, which, spanning an opening of some four feet in height by three in breadth, could not have been moved by fewer than two or three men. They could not hope to roll away such a stone by themselves, and how were they, at that early hour, to procure the necessary assistance? Their anxiety did not last long. "When they looked," says St. Mark, "they saw that the stone was rolled away." It seems to have been rolled into the first or outer chamber of the tomb, where the angel was sitting upon it when he addressed the holy women. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. |
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