Mark 16:1-8
The Resurrection of Jesus
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
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There is no despair darker than death. There is no shadow that looms larger than the pall that death casts upon life. It looms, seemingly larger than life, at the end of our days, and we cannot pull back the curtain and see what lies beyond it.
And yet, we have great reason to hope. We have every reason to look at death not as an enemy, but as a defeated power, a shadow that lingers yet cannot control us. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ, death's power is broken and we are invited into eternal life. Christ takes the most despairing element of life and turns it into the greatest reason for hope--the graveyard is now a place of new life, so we can wander among the graves and see the names of the newly-born, rather than the destroyed. In death we have life.
For every ounce of despair in this world, Christ gives us hope. Even in the darkness of death, the light of Christ shines brighter.
Blessings
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