Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
John 20: l-18
A child asked her father, "Daddy, what does Easter mean? Is it kind of like Christmas?"
"In a way. Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birth Easter is when we celebrate his resurrection."
"Resur-what, Daddy?"
"Resurrection. That means when he was raised from the dead after being crucified and buried."
"You mean they killed him and put him in a grave and then took him out again?"
"Not exactly. It was the evil of people that killed Jesus. But it was the goodness of God that raised him from the grave ... that gave him new 1ife.”
"Daddy, you mean that Jesus was really dead and buried and then God made him alive again?" A note of wondering in her small voice.
"That's right, and on Easter we celebrate this. Because the Church is alive, and we are alive, only because Jesus lives -- in the world and in our hearts.”
A long pause. And now a note of puzzlement in her voice.
"Gee Daddy, why don't we have Easter every day?"
Well, why don't we?
Louise Westfall (1991)
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