Each year I look for something especially meaningful on the weekend on which we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. This Sunday, as has been my habit in recent years, I attended Sunrise Service. The scripture text for the message was from John’s account, chapter 20. As we read the text, I noticed that Mary Magdalene came to Peter and John and said that Jesus’ body had been stolen. Peter and John ran to the tomb, went in, saw the graveclothes, and the verse 20:8 says they “believed.” Believed Mary?
Whatever they ‘believed,’ they ‘went away again unto their own homes,’ leaving Mary M. outside the tomb weeping. It was to Mary that Jesus appeared. Jesus then directed her to go ‘to my brethren, and say unto them’ what He told her to say. Now why did our Lord wait until it was Mary to give this directive to go teach the men? Why did He not simply appear to Peter and John, relying on men to teach men? That Jesus so purposed to make Mary Magdalene the first bearer of the ‘good news’ of His resurrection, broke upon me in that reading with an explosion of insight!
