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
2 comments:
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.
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.
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