Reading: Luke 24:1-12
In the cool of the morning, several women journey through a garden to give their last gifts to the man they loved more than any other. He had delivered some of them from demons, taught them, ate their food, healed them, and showed them the love and forgiveness of God. Now, he was dead; yet his memory lived on compelling them to honor his body and his life with their gifts.
Strangely, it was in the cool of the morning thousands of years before near the world's beginning that God had walked through a garden to find a man and his wife who had rebelled against his friendship and rule. That journey resulted in a round of blame shifting and banishment from God's presence into a world cursed by sin.
How different these women's journeys will end! For on arriving at the burial grounds and finding the tomb, they are perplexed to find the heavy stone rolled away from tomb. They rush in seeking the body of their Lord. Only to discover it is not there! All is not as it seemed just moments ago.
Unsure of what to do they hesitate and there surrounded by the reminders of death two dazzling beings like men suddenly break in to their reality. Stunned and terrified, the women fall to the ground. Heaven has invaded earth with the greatest announcement the world will ever hear - "Christ is risen from the dead; he has trampled over death. The glory of God has defeated the night. He is not here; he has risen!"
Imagine for a moment the turmoil of these women's dreams just hours before. Everything they had ever hoped Jesus might be, everything they had hoped he represented of who God was and who they could be had been ripped away. This man they loved had been mocked and ridiculed for what they believed he was - God's Son. He had been tortured and executed for his refusal to deny this reality. Everything they had put their faith in was invalidated and destroyed by their Lord's crucifixion. They would now be the most ridiculed of people for having given everything to him. Having abandoned their own lives to follow him. Quietly they mourned the crushing of their hopes and faith.
Yet, here in the early morning hours, everything changed. He is not here, he is risen. Just as he said he would. The words of Jesus come rushing back into their minds, "The Son of Man must be handed over to evil men and be crucified but on the third day he will rise." Their faith has in the most shocking of ways been suddenly affirmed. Everything they had lived for is suddenly validated. By the resurrection of the man Jesus Christ. He is alive! His promises were true. He was God. Eternal life is possible. We will rise one day with him. Hope for today. Faith for tomorrow. Life awakened from within. In one moment, all of history turns. Nothing will ever be the same.
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