“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

Puzzled. That’s how Mary and friends felt when Jesus’ body simply wasn’t where it should have been that first Resurrection Sunday.

Puzzled should surely also be our conclusion when we consider many of our own actions in life. We so easily choose what turns out to be self-destructive and harmful attitudes, habits and goals. Hopefully before too much damage is done, we become puzzled that the promised life in these things is just a pile of empty grave clothes.

Puzzled could have also been the angels’ reaction to the women being there in the first place. I can imagine God sending them off on that errand to a response of “We’re going to the tomb? Really? Haven’t these followers figured the destination yet?”

But what joy and happiness the women experienced when they got the reminder of Jesus’ words! Oh wow, he said that about rising from the dead didn’t he?

So, like them, let’s choose to leave the dead places. Let’s rejoice in the life Jesus bought us in death – a life that was sealed in glory as he rose on that Resurrection Sunday.

Hallelujah, He Is Risen Indeed!