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Jesus had been dead three days.  Some of the women who had followed Him came to His tomb early and had found the stone door rolled away and His body gone!  They had told His disciples, and Peter and John had come to the grave site and seen for themselves that His body was gone.  But now the others had left and only Mary Magdalene remained.  It is here we pick up the story from the book, Why God Birthed America…

“Mary did not want to leave.  She stood there a few steps from the entrance to the grave, trying to sort out all that had happened.  The angels had said He was alive.  Jesus Himself had told them He would come back to life.  But could that really be?  She moved closer to the entrance.  Questions were flying through her mind.  Could He really be alive again?

She didn’t know how long she stood there lost in thought.  But as she put her head on the doorway and wept, she was instantly blinded with light!  There they were again!  The two shining creatures she and the other women had seen earlier!  They looked at her with compassion.

‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ they asked.

‘Because they’ve taken away my Lord and I don’t know where they’ve put Him,’ she wailed.  She turned her head away, having no stamina which could stand up to the questions of celestial beings.  What had happened?  Where was His body?  Her mind was racing, exceeded only by the racing of her heart.  Blinded by tears, she turned from the doorway and nearly bumped into a figure standing there.

In between her sobs, she heard the person say, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’

More questions!  Everyone kept asking her questions.  She was tired. She was confused.  Couldn’t somebody just tell her where Jesus’ body was!  Then a thought seemed to force its way to the surface of her thinking.  Could this perhaps be the caretaker?  Maybe he had moved the body—or knew who did.  In childlike faith she fell at his feet, grasping his ankles and pleading, ‘Sir, if you have done something with the body of Jesus, please tell me.  I’ll come and take it away,’ her tears revealing her deep sincerity.  And then she heard it.

‘Mary!’

The voice!  It was—oh could it be—that voice!  It was the voice that had first spoken peace to her tormented soul.  It was the voice that had driven out the evil spirits that had bound her.  It was Jesus’ voice!  She turned her tear-stained face upward to see those kind eyes looking down at her.

It was Him!  He was alive!

‘Master!’ Mary exclaimed, hugging His ankles with all the strength in her.  She had found Him again—He was alive—and she wasn’t about to let go of Him.  The joy flooding her emotions knew no bounds!  Her tears of pain were now turned to tears of joy—joy greater than she had ever known!

Jesus gently said to her, ‘Stop clinging to Me.   I’m on the way to the Father.    But go tell my brothers that I’m ascending to My Father, Who is also their Father.’

And after a moment, He was gone.  She had just had His ankles in her hands—and now He was gone!  But what should have been a loss didn’t feel that way now.  He was alive!  Mary had the distinct witness in her heart that He wasn’t gone forever, that He wasn’t far away.  She rose from the ground and began to run to tell the others.  They must know.  Just like He said, He had gone into death and come out of it at will.  And He was not only spirit:  She had held the ankles of His new body in her own hands.  He was flesh and bone again!”  (John 20:11-18)

Do you personally know this Resurrected Christ?

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.