Even when we expect it, even when we know it is coming, Easter arrives all wrapped up in surprise. We are amazed at this great thing God has done. Life springs from the darkest place we can imagine.
Death is sent packing.
We are given again the gift of wonder, and we stand amazed in the presence of our risen Lord.
Open wide now your heart. Open your heart to the Light — the Lord of Life!
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Luke 24:1-12
“These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them,” Luke says. Other translations read, “Their words seemed to them like nonsense,” or “foolishness.” You can almost see the disciples nudging each other and saying, “You know how women talk.”
But not these women. These are women who have been with them from the beginning, who were there when Jesus first told his disciples he was going to suffer, die, and rise again (Luke 8:1-3). Their witness is completely reliable.
I think about the women in my own life who have told me the good news of Jesus’ resurrection – my mother, my Sunday school teachers, some of the best preachers I’ve ever heard. I know how women talk.
They tell the truth.
Jim Somerville
Lord, thank you for those women who have told us the good news about Jesus. They were the last at the cross, the first at the tomb. If we should listen to anyone, we should listen to them. Amen.
Christ is living, no more weeping, no more time for grief and pain!
Neither death nor tomb could hold Christ, who is living once again.
Do not look among the dead for one who lives most certainly;
Christ is living! Hear the good news that resounds so joyfully.
Nicolas Martinez