Why did they run against one another? What did they think they were running toward? Mary Magdalene interpreted the empty tomb as further tragedy. Not only had they killed Jesus; now someone had stolen His body. Perhaps they were running toward that awful, terrible, last insult.

"There's been a bad accident on the school ground," someone told the mothers at coffee. And everyone of them jumped up and started running toward the school. Why run? Why run toward the tragic? If it is not your child who is hurt, then some other mother's child is hurt. Odd. We run toward both good news and bad. We must know, and quickly, if the news, good or bad, is for us.

Or perhaps they ran as rivals, says Tom Long. Throughout the Gospel of John, it's Peter who is the leader of the disciples, the one with a ready word on most occasions. But it was this "beloved disciple," whoever he was, who seems closest to the heart of Jesus. They ran to see which one of them -- Peter the leader, or the disciple who was beloved -- would arrive first.

A group of kids walking down the sidewalk arm-in-arm. Someone shouts from down the street, "There's free ice cream being given out down at the corner store," and watch friends become rivals in a race to the corner. They want to see if the good news is theirs, if this be good news for them.

As they run, these two disciples, surely there was something in them which told them that, in this strange event, they were running toward some strange, new, possibly terrifying future. Someone says, "Come! Look at this!" and we come, we run, toward exactly what, we do not know. But we run.

And perhaps that describes you this Easter. You have come here. But when I ask you, "Why, have you come?" you have no ready answer. Perhaps you do not know why. You have no clear picture of what you think you'll here see or experience.

And I think John says that these two sprinting disciples came to Jesus' tomb just like that, not knowing, running toward some new, strange event which they instinctively knew meant a change in their world. John says that the beloved disciple outran Peter, won the race, got there first (John 20:4). That may seem a small detail, but isn't it interesting John mentions that the beloved disciple got there first? Not only that, John says that he was the first one to peer into the empty tomb and believe. The beloved disciple was the first to believe in Easter.

I think that John not only wanted to tell us that the beloved disciple got there first, but also how he got there. Others came to Easter in different ways. Mary will not believe until she stands face-to-face with the risen Christ and hears him call her name, "Mary!" Thomas doesn't believe until the Risen Christ offers to let Thomas touch His pierced hands and wounded side. For Thomas, only seeing is believing.

But the beloved disciple comes to Easter another way. He believes without seeing. He doesn't hear Jesus. He doesn't see the Risen Christ. All he does is to come, to peer into the dark, empty tomb and he believes. Long says that, "the beloved disciple, unlike the others, believes in the resurrection in the light of Jesus' absence." There is nothing there, no evidence. No Shroud of Turin, no photos, just an empty place. But, "He saw and believed" (John 20:8).