IN THEIR FRIGHT . . .

While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” —Luke 24:4–6

Each of the Gospels tells the story of the resurrection of Jesus with different emphases and variations. Different people who visited the empty tomb that Sunday morning had different memories. There were different variations of the interactions with the angel or angels who announced the news, and some of the conversations were reported with differing details. This kind of variation would be expected from the retold reports across a group of people who had experienced different aspects of the most startling and surprising, terrifying and wonderful thing they could imagine. But the most important details are in agreement across all the different reports: After Jesus had died and was buried the previous Friday afternoon, the tomb was empty by the time the first women got there early on Sunday morning. A number of the male and female disciples of Jesus were witnesses of this and interacted with the angels who were part of the Resurrection scene. Then, quite a few of them actually met and talked with the resurrected, fully alive, fully human Jesus, even on that first Sunday.

Despite their sorrow, surprise, fear, resistance to the news, and initial doubts, many knew that Jesus really was alive. Since that early Sunday morning, many have regarded the Resurrection of Jesus as a mystery to be solved. This was Peter’s experience when he went to the tomb and looked over the scene. “He went away, wondering to himself what had happened” (Luke 24:12). But putting all the evidence together, multitudes across the centuries since have concluded that, as impossible as it might seem, the best explanation is that Jesus actually rose from the dead—and that changed everything.