Do you suppose that Mark may have been making a play on words! “He has risen, he is not here.” This is a message Jesus’ followers were needing to hear. What a message! Such a message causes many to say, it can’t be true, we have come to do honor to our Lord, and now we are told, he is not here, but has risen!

The message is so wonderful that it seems as if it can’t be true. What an ending to what was a terrible ending of Christ’s ministry and teaching to a lost and troubled world! What a dramatic reversal to a horrendous story of pain and suffering. We need to use this Good News story to examine our own expectation, what we expect to recall of ‘things’ that happen to us, in the living of our days.

The women who have come to love and be loved by the Christ, come early to the tomb, expecting to perform one last service to Jesus. In Jesus’ day they did not have funeral directors to prepare the dead body for viewing. But when they entered the tomb they did not find Jesus’ body, but “a young man” dressed in white.

Tradition tells us that this young man was an angel, a messenger, bringing the message of great and glorious news to all who need to hear. The message is, He has risen, and he is not here a prisoner of the tomb. The message for us today is the same; it will never be any different. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is alive in the world for you, me and all people in the world. This message of good news is for all of us to share with all who do not know it. I visited a man in the hospital; he is very ill and not expecting to walk out on his own. I pray that my visit has given him the assurance that because Christ lives he will also, in this world or the next.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, You have given us life, not only the life we live here and now, but also through The Christ, the assurance of eternal life. Because He lives we can face tomorrow and whatever it brings. Touch us God with Your loving Spirit now and forever. Amen.