By this point, tears failed the faithful few; twin ducts in many pairs reached deep within their wells, but not a drop was to be discovered. All tears had been shed. What remained was merely the want of a tear. The idea of a tear. All creation had wept in quaked darkness three days before, as the Creator breathed His last on a tree of His own design. Now, a deep red sky bled on the eastern hills as the Sunday sun turned from beneath its earthen blanket. “Awake” is not the word. No, more like “dissociated.” Or, maybe, more simply, “exhausted.” That’s the word. Emotionally, spiritually, relationally, physically exhausted. The women. The earth. The course of human history, even. All of it, exhausted.
The women came in small number, their sandaled feet scratching the surface of the dusted terrain, droning on in a wordless song of sorrow, as they made their way to the place where they had laid Him. Had they laid Him there? Or was it elsewhere? No, this was the place. That’s right. In Joseph’s tomb outside the city. A Sabbath’s rest was robbed of the mourners by grief’s exhausting demands. Clarity failed to confusion as memory had to wishful thinking. Wonderment had given way to disappointment and curiosity to disquiet. Not the kind of disquiet you discover anew on a dreadful morning, but, rather, the kind that discovers you and demands of you all through the night.
Yet still they came.
Devotion commanded them, even while hope escaped.
Jesus was dead.
Dead. This was the third day His lifeless corpse was shut up in the belly of the grave. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Solome, Joanna, and several other women attended the garden tomb that morning. Not a word was spoken between them. What remained to be said? The silence between them was thicker — more substantive, even — than any word might pretend. “Myrrh bearers,” some would later come to call them. Their singular occupation that morning was to make that which was dead smell like life was in it. A fragrant offering applied to a decaying corpse.
As the women approached the tomb, the veil of the early morning (and of their late mourning) lifted. Wait. Is that? … It couldn’t be. Who could have rolled the stone away? Had thieves come to desecrate the body of the Lord? It must not be. Carefully, methodically, they went on, and they went in. But the body of their Christ was not there.
Suddenly, angelic inquiry cut through dawning perplexity: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day?’” The memory of all hope flooded their minds. The women made haste to the disciples who, in turn, ran to the tomb to see for themselves. Then they all returned to their gathering in amazement, not yet understanding what had happened.
Mary Magdalene stayed behind, however, outside the tomb. Tears had returned in no short supply. And the resurrected Christ met her there. Not merely to dry her eyes, but to open them. She saw the resurrected Lord, and that changed everything. Joy flushed her face again. Hope returned to her soul and courage to her heart. Then, Jesus entrusted to her the greatest of human responsibility: She was to go and tell the rest that she had seen Him, encountered Him. Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
The strongest of seven demons could not have bridled Mary’s excitement that morning, even if they had not previously met their exorcism at the Lord’s command. “I have seen the Lord!” Mary exclaimed.
Reader, have you? No, of course I don’t mean physically. I mean spiritually, repentantly, transformatively. Have you encountered the Christ of resurrection and redemption? Annual resurrection celebrations approach with calendared expectation. But none can compare to the testimony of a single life transformed by the hope of the gospel. Tell them. Tell them all. Tell them today, and every day. Jesus is alive, and that changes everything.