Revelation - Mk. 16:6, 7

"He isn't here! He has been raised from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body... Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died!" Mk. 16:6, 7

Putting myself in the place of these women at this moment, it must have felt like one of these movies where a revelation hits, and all of a sudden the flashbacks begin. All the pieces suddenly fit! All the strange statements suddenly make sense! This is REALLY happening! Jesus IS alive! He IS the Messiah! We WILL see him again! This had to be overwhelming -- did Mary, Mary and Salome even speak to each other on the way back from the tomb? The rare moments when I have experienced a supernatural revelation, when I KNEW God was speaking directly to me, I was left speechless -- literally.

Mark crafted this chapter well. He tells us in 15:47 that, specifically, Mary and Mary "..saw where Jesus' body was laid." Then when they go back the next morning, the "young man" in white says to them, "Look, this is where they laid the body." They knew where that body was laid, and it was not there! The passage ends with them fleeing the tomb trembling and bewildered, too frightened to talk. My bet is that this is exactly accurate -- along with their brains moving a hundred miles a second trying to make sense of it all, and starting to connect all the dots (Lk. 9:21). It had to be a surreal moment in time!

Jesus, help me to live every day with the revelation of what you did fresh in my mind; let me never cease being overwhelmed.

Today's reading: Job 26, 27; Mk. 13, 14