The women, Mary Magdalene, Mary Jesus’ mother, Joanna, & a group of their friends went to Christ’s tomb to wrap His body in spices & precious ointments. As a preparation for final burial. Because they didn’t want the stench of a decomposing body drifting beyond the rock that sealed the tomb, & perhaps, horror of horrors, attracting scavenging animals. They’d wanted to do the preparation of the body right after the crucifixion, but they ran out of time due to the oncoming, God-mandated Sabbath time of rest that seemed to serve as a lurking 24-hour period of anything BUT as they waited, patiently & obediently before gathering themselves at the crack of dawn on Sunday.

Something wasn’t right. There was the tomb, & there was the rock that was supposed to be covering its entrance. Only it wasn’t. It has been neatly, yet forcibly removed from its location so that now it was more of a decoration than an impenetrable blockage. What could this mean? They didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

Two men in the whitest, most dazzling clothes ever appeared to them, declaring, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus is not dead. He is ALIVE!” The women ran back in to Jerusalem & shared what they had seen & heard, & over the next days/weeks, Jesus appeared, in the flesh, to more than 500 of His followers, challenging His disciples to take the good news message of repentance & forgiveness of sins in the Name of Jesus to all the people of the the world. And the world has never been the same.