Sunday, March 27, 2005

The First Day of the Week

Early in the morning just after sunrise, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joses, and Salome took spices they had bought and went to Jesus' tomb to anoint his body.

But when they arrived to the tomb, they found the stone rolled away from the entrance. Jesus' body was nowhere to be found. They encounter a man who startles them.

"Do you, do you know what's happened to the body?"

"He is not here. Tell the disciples to go back to Galilee; he will appear to them there."

Trembling and bewildered they left the tomb.

Where was his body? Who had taken it to Galilee? Should we tell anyone? What if they accuse us of taking the body. They decided they would not tell anyone until they could figure it out.

"Back so soon," Peter asked. He, James, and John were waiting on them, and they would all go to Galilee together.

"You're back awefully soon," Peter said.

"Were you able to get the stone rolled back?" Peter asked. The women remained silent.

Finally Mary got up the courage to say. "It was already rolled back."

"What?" A look of distress came over Peter and John.

"Did you see the body?" John asked.

"No."

Peter and John ran out of the house in Bethany. They both ran all the way to Jerusalem to the tomb. Nothing was there but the linen cloth.

John immediately began to think of resurrection. Peter just couldn't quite get his head around it all. They both hurried back to Bethany.

"Was there anything else that happened, anything else that you remember," Peter asked the women.

"There was a man there. He said that Jesus would appear to you in Galilee."

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