LITN XXIV, Verses 1 - 12

1. But on the first day of the week, at the first light of dawn, the women took the spices which they had carefully prepared for His body, and made their way to the tomb.

2. But when they got there, they discovered that the huge, flat stone which fit down into the slot that ran along the front of the sepulcher had been rolled away from the door of it.

3. Without hesitation they entered the enclosure, but the physical remains of Jesus which they had come to anoint were nowhere to be found.

4. The women were stunned by this...they didn't know what to think...didn't know what to say...they just stood there, dumbfounded and confused, staring in disbelief at the empty slab where His body had been just hours earlier. Then, suddenly, two men who were dressed in clothes that seemed to gleam like lightning appeared, and stood right beside them.

5. The sight of these beings from another dimension sent the women into a state of sheer panic. Completely overcome with fear, they collapsed, face forward, onto the stony ground, and lay there in dead silence. But the men in the lightning-lit clothes said to them, "Ladies...why have you come looking for the living among the dead?

6. He is not here! He has risen! Don't you remember how He told you while He was still with you there in Galilee:

7. 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the temporary custody of rebels, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again.' "

8. And then, as the messengers repeated Jesus' own self-prophecy to them, the women settled down. The peace that was still attached to those words enveloped them, and soon they became ecstatic as they remembered and finally understood them.

9. When they came back from the tomb, they shared all of these amazing things with the remaining Eleven, and with all the others who were connected to them.

10. The women who went to the tomb were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and some others who came with them. They all went together to find the disciples.

11. But the disciples didn't believe the women at all, because their words seemed to them to be the utter nonsense of hysterical women.

12. Peter, however, wanted to believe them, so he sprang up and ran, by himself, all the way to the tomb. When he got there, he went in, bent down, and saw the strips of linen lying by themselves. After a while he left the empty structure, realizing that something had definitely happened there, but he had no idea what.