Have you ever had something you felt was secure, suddenly end?  A treasured thing or person, taken away before you knew what was happening?  Maybe it was a piece of your security abruptly pulled out from under you - the loss of a good job, the end of a relationship you thought was a sure thing, or unexpectedly receiving information that shocks you to your core?  Or perhaps, you’ve experienced a permanent or traumatic loss of someone or something beloved to you, and had to process life after loss?

That’s where Mary found herself on a quiet, empty morning following one of the worst experiences of her life.  How am I still breathing, Lord, when you are not?  Her teacher, mentor, Savior, friend was just…gone?  Killed violently, suddenly absent, her whole world seemingly up in smoke.  That small community was rocked after what Jesus had said would happen, actually did.  (For they believed the prophecy so little, many of them didn’t even remember He had said it.)  Each of the disciples and followers grieved in their own ways, some gathering, some seeking solitude, some raging publicly, and a small group of women, Mary among them, found themselves drawn close to the place they had last been present with Jesus, or what remained of Him.

Each of the Gospels presents a slightly different version of the events of this morning - were there two angels, or just one?  Were they outside the tomb or sitting inside it?  What happened to the guards the government had placed there?  It makes sense that four different people trying to document these shocking events relayed to them by an eyewitness, wouldn’t get it quite right.  Matthew is most concerned about the plot to blame it all on the disciples;  John makes sure we know he beat Peter in the race to the tomb afterward.   But sadly, there is no Gospel of Mary (that we know of…)

What we do know, from all four accounts of Jesus’ life in the Bible, is that when Mary sought the place of her deepest grief, returning to honor Jesus and reassure herself that it all really happened…HE WAS NOT THERE.

That has literally never happened to me.  As an Enneagram Four, I often feel the urge to go and look for the body, so to speak.  Intentionally reliving events and going over them in my mind helps me fully understand the feelings and process what I’ve experienced.  When I’ve lost a job, watched my child in pain, lost a relationship, had to walk away from a home I loved - those events are right where I left them, the feelings just as real as the first time I felt them, for the rest of time.  Never in my life have I returned to a scene of pain and found it empty, the trappings of the hurt folded and left where the body once was.

Mary knew she needed to see Jesus, to honor His life, in order to comprehend His death.  Several of the accounts mention her words “I cannot find him;  I do not know where He is!”  All she thought she needed to keep going was to follow the rituals of her time and place, to go through the motions her culture had taught her.  She needed to put her hands on him and confirm that, indeed, no life was left.  Only to find, Jesus was never meant to decay;  He could never return to dust as human do!  Lord, were you serious when you said you would rise?  Oh, my heart, please let it be true!  Luke's account of that fateful morning records the hopeful and joyful words of one of the angels at the mouth of the terrifyingly open tomb, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; He has risen!"

For me, that is the very essence of the resurrection:  When it comes to Jesus, we cannot find the living among the dead.   Looking for Jesus in the midst of death or loss, we find him alive, his power restored;  we can revisit the place of pain, and he will meet us there, miraculously ALIVE.

Alleluia, He is risen!

—Stacie Martin