Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said,

they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him.

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.

Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb.

He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head.

The cloth was still lying in its

place, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went

inside. He saw and believed. They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the

dead. Then the disciples went back to where

they were staying. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. After resurrection, Jesus didn't

make straight for Pilots courtyard or the priest's temple for the ultimate

told you so the way I probably would have. He spent that first Easter Sunday on a rural

back road walking alongside two people making their way from Jerusalem to the nearby village of

Emmaus. Luke chapter 24. and beginning with Moses and the prophets,

he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. So Jesus proceeded

to tell a story that they thought they already knew, a story drained of all of its wonder, a story

they'd grown so familiar with to dismiss as trite.

A story worth doubting to many, believable to a few, but even those who did believe it were

deemed gullible and unenlightened by the masses, to put it politely.

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