The resurrection!

We were in the Upper room. It had become where we spent most of our time now..... The new now, after what happened on Friday.

Somehow being together made what we had learned & what we thought & what we'd seen & given our lives to for three years more, well more as though it hadn't been a complete waste of time. We were still raw with all that had happened just three days ago, on Friday. Only three days, three days that might just as well have been three years for it seemed to us then that we couldn't really remember things Jesus had said when He was with us, because you see, Jesus was dead & that changed everything!
All we had given up, all the hope we had placed in Him, gone. We couldn't go back to our lives before because to do so seemed like ultimately admitting that we had wasted 3 years on this man who we thought was the Messiah, who we had thought would save His people, just as David & the prophets had said the Messiah would, but He, Jesus, was dead.

I couldn't believe it was a waste, I couldn't believe it had all been in vain, yet......here we were. We seemed to lurch one after another from despair to grief to acceptance & round again & again.

So, it's Sunday.
It's morning & as we stir from the dreamless sleep of the exhausted we realised that Mary Magdalene & the other Mary had gone. They said they would, they wanted to take the spices to anoint His body. None of the rest of us could face it really, brought it home too much I guess.
Before we'd had time to collect our thoughts even, the two of them arrived back. They were really upset - 'They've taken Him, they've taken Him...He's not there.'
At that point it was Peter & I that looked at one another & without a word, ran. We didn't need to ask who or where, we simply ran as though our lives depended on it, for in every way that is important, our lives did depend on it. We ran to the tomb.
Sure enough, the guards were gone - they'd gone back to the priests we assumed, but what of the body? What was the point of them taking His body? The stone wasn't across the face of the tomb - the stone wasn't even in its groove, it was clean out & leaning against the side of the tomb - I remember thinking how strange that was. All these things run through your mind in milliseconds as you run towards your goal. I got there first, Peter couldn't keep up, but I stood there trying to make sense of it.
When Peter caught up with me, he went straight into the tomb itself. I followed & saw there was nothing there. Well, I say nothing, but there was, there were the burial cloths. I'd seen Joseph wrap His poor broken lifeless body in them on that awful Friday, just three days ago, but here they were folded in this tomb. Even the one we wrapped around His bloodied head was rolled up at the end.

It was at that point like my mind had suddenly been freed to remember what He'd said. You see, He'd said this, He'd said He would rise, He'd known He would die & He said He'd rise. Was it actually all true? Had He risen, risen from death?
Belief & hope flooded my whole body. If He had, if it was true, then everything fell back into place like the picture you see when a mosaic is complete. We'd seen fragments before, but now, I thought, for the first time, I think I am beginning to see something of the full picture. I needed thinking time, so I went home to ponder.
Mary told us she wanted to wait behind at the tomb, she said she felt closer to Him there, even though his body had gone. I'm glad she did because of what happened next.

I hadn't been home too long when Mary arrived at my door, I'd left her weeping by that tomb, but this was a very different Mary, banging on our door & babbling....'Angels....seen Him....risen....like He said'

We all met back then in the Upper room. What a difference from the mood of the morning! We almost didn't dare believe it, but when we all listened together to what Mary had seen - angels telling her He had risen, then turning & seeing Him & Him speaking her name & knowing it was Him just confirmed what Peter & I had almost not dared to believe, despite with all our hearts wanting to believe that all He had said was true. That He is the Son of Man & He has risen from being dead!
But before we could fully digest what had happened to Mary, & what she was telling us, He was there! Honestly, He was suddenly just, there! He looked at us all & said 'Peace to you!'

My first thought was that it really was only 4 days ago when He'd last said that to us in this very room, where He'd explained that His peace wasn't like the peace the world gives. So very much had happened since then, but now, here He was, risen from the dead.
As I looked at Him there was something of that brilliance & radiance Peter, James & I had seen when we went up & saw Him transfigured before us, yet it was Jesus. It was the Jesus we'd all known for so long.

Jesus was alive!

Jesus had risen! How can I describe that to you? It was like having lived all your life in a cave & coming out suddenly into sunlight with all it's warmth & light & beauty.

When He held out His hands & spoke peace to us we could see the nail marks on His hands. I looked at His feet & there the nail marks were. It really is Jesus, I thought.

I wanted to laugh, to cry, to jump, to hug Him, to dance & to ask a million questions, but there was time for that. For now it was enough that He was here.

Jesus was alive!



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