God Gives The Explanation

Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!   Luke 24:5-6

Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James went to the tomb three days after Jesus died on the cross. They found that the rock in front of the tomb had been moved and the tomb was empty, but they had no idea what to make of it. They were lost for an explanation; the empty tomb left them wondering.

The women didn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that Jesus had risen. Mary didn’t say, “I have the feeling he must have risen from the dead.” Joanna didn’t say, “I have that feeling too. I think you’re right.” The thought didn’t even occur to them. The first visitors had no idea what to make of the empty tomb.

So how did they know what had happened? God told them: “Two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, ‘Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!’” (Luke 24:4-6).

God must have called two angels and said, “Go tell them what I have done. There’s no way they’re ever going to work out what happened.” Christian faith rests entirely on grasping and believing what God tells us he has done.

We have seen this pattern throughout the Bible story. Adam had no way of knowing who he was until God told him. The Virgin Mary had no way of knowing what was happening to her until God sent an angel to explain it. The shepherds and wise men would never have known that the child in the manger was God in human flesh without God’s explanation through the angels.

Christian faith does not rest on feelings, impulses, or personal insights. It is believing God’s explanation of his actions given to us in his Word: “He is risen from the dead!”

For further reading, see Hebrews 11