This year, the Resurrection Gospel is Luke 24:1-12. The account shows remarkable agreement with other accounts, but Luke has a unique way of telling the story. He simply says "they" came to the tomb and does not indicate their gender till the end of the sentence. The writer does not specify who these women were until verse 10. The women find the tomb open with Jesus' body missing, and they are perplexed. This perplexity turns to amazement when two angelic beings tell them that Jesus has risen from the dead as He predicted. The women accept this message and return to share it with the eleven apostles and others. However, the men hesitate to believe the women's report. Peter has to go see for himself, and even then, his initial response to the empty tomb is merely wonderment or surprise.
Luke's account has a special emphasis on two points about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. First, the events of Holy Week had traumatized the disciples. They had not really understood or appreciated the divine plan for salvation in Jesus Christ. Although they loved Him and expected great things from Him, they had not really expected His crucifixion or His resurrection. They were shocked and depressed, and they were slow to understand the meaning of the empty tomb.
Secondly, as this passage starts to show and other accounts develop, Christ's disciples did slowly and convincingly come to believe firmly in His resurrection. If anything, the initial discouragement, perplexity, and surprise of the disciples make their later witness to the resurrection more powerful. The disciples were not confident plotters trying to mislead others. They were humble people transformed by divine revelation and miraculous grace. Let us pray that the same divine revelation and grace may transform us into witnesses for the risen Lord Jesus!
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