Skip to main content

The Easter that didn't happen

Now on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, and saw that the stone had been rolled away.  She ran to Simon Peter and John, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

So Peter and John ran to the tomb; and in the growing light they could see the body of Jesus, exactly where it had been laid.  "Foolish woman," they said.  "Were you not there when they took him down from the cross?  Did you not see the blood and water come from his side?  Tend to the dead with your ointments and spices, and trouble us no longer with stories of missing bodies."

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look in, and saw that Jesus' body was indeed still there.  Then she washed it, and anointed it with perfume and precious spices, and returned home.

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the disciples were together with the doors shut, for fear of the Jews.  And they said to one another, "The Rabbi has been crucified, and if we are not careful we shall die next.  Let us therefore return to Galilee, and decide how best to preserve his teachings and honour his memory."  And this seemed good to them all.

So they returned home and lived quietly, gathering once a year to remember their Teacher, and mourning that he died before he could bring in the Kingdom of God, of which he had so eloquently spoken.

If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
1 Corinthians 15:14

Comments

Helen Paynter said…
Very good, thank you Martha. I'm preaching from this text on Sunday, and might just pinch this, if it's OK with you? Makes you look at things from a different perspective.
Martha said…
Go ahead Helen - I'm always happy when people pinch my blog! I might do some kind of follow-up post, but can't promise it before Sunday - and this seemed to stand up on its own anyway.

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...

Laid-back Lille and Bustling Brussels

After a night in a tiny AirBnB in Canterbury , where there were chocolates on the table and artwork on every inch of the walls, we boarded a ferry with an absolute minimum of fuss, enjoyed a smooth crossing of the channel, and were deposited in the decidedly unscenic surroundings of the port of Dunkirk two hours later. Once we got past the cranes and shipping containers, though, the countryside was flat but pleasant. We stopped at a small town called Cassel, reached by cobbled roads winding up a hill. On the summit was an old windmill and a topograph telling you the distances to various improbable places; St Omer may have been visible in the haze, but Manchester was surely over the horizon.  In Lille, we found our apartment, unpacked the luggage (one rucksack apiece), and set out to find food. Our first choice was fully booked, so we embarked on that kind of aimless wandering where everyone is hungry and no one wants to actually choose a restaurant. We reached a Lebanese place call...

Preparing

Graham and I have a small difference of opinion when it comes to cleaning for visitors.  He thinks I have perfectionist tendencies.  I think I'm doing the bare minimum.  After all, I have to at least pick up all the toys and clean up that pile of crumbs that keeps appearing under Toby's dining chair, don't I?  And while I've got the vacuum cleaner out, the living room and hall always need doing.  And there's no way our guests want to see all that dirty washing up, so I'll just do that.  And wipe all the counters.  And file all those pieces of paper that have been sitting there for weeks.  And... what?  Perfectionist?  Me? Of course, this may be one of those male/female divides.  Most of my female friends regard having guests over as an opportunity to make the house look reasonable for at least a few hours.  Because all that clutter just builds up.  A pile of paper there, a stack of laundry waiting to be put away, those o...