The angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said.
“I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.
He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen.”
Matthew 28:5-6 (NLT)
The sun had barely crept over the horizon when the women set out. Their calloused hands cradled the aromatic spices they had prepared. Silently, they approached the tomb. Mary Magdalene swiped a hand across her cheek. She wondered at man’s cruelty and the depth of her own anguish. The one person who had believed in her and loved her unconditionally was gone. Where would she go from here? What would the future hold without her Lord?
“Look!” one of the women cried. Mary glanced up and saw the stone had been rolled away. Two angels appeared before them, clothed in dazzling robes. They asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!”
In one instant, everything changed. Death was cheated. Evil was defeated. Jesus had conquered the grave. All their hopes were restored in the light of Easter morning. Sadness turned to joy. Because that’s what God does; He transforms tears into joy, brings light to the darkness, heals the brokenhearted, and restores hope to those who despair.
When British minister, W.E. Sangster began to lose his voice in the mid-1950s, he pleaded, “Let me stay in the struggle, Lord. I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general but give me just a regiment to lead.” Sangster’s voice eventually failed completely, and his legs became useless. On Easter morning just a few weeks before his death, he took a pen and shakily wrote his daughter a letter that said, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice with which to shout, ‘He is risen!’ – but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”
Look up! Easter morning has dawned. Hope and life have been restored because Christ overcame sin and death. Now that’s something worth shouting about, don’t you think?