As I was reading the Matthew 27 account this week, I couldn’t help but imagine which of the characters I would be or would want to be. I concluded that the most enviable would be the women. The women had front row seats, after all – they were at the foot of the cross, they were at the burial, and they were right there at the resurrection! They didn’t miss it – any of it. Neither do we?

Not only for these women disciples, but even for small children, Holy Friday – this Good Day, is a high point in the cadance of our faith. It is the pinnacle of “good news” to everyone on earth. It is redeeming news. This brilliant shock of news following the smear of darkness which had fallen across the quaking earth forever marked the day God fulfilled His promise of eternal goodness to mankind.

“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)

Following those poignant, sober days, the resurrection was a surprise – a most jubilant experience for those women who believed! It proved to them, as it proves to us now that our faith is not in vain (I Corinthians 15:17).

God allows us to celebrate a Resurrection Sabbath and worship because there is hope and deliverance in the words “He is not here. He is risen.” Jesus’ resurrection empowers the gospel – it completes it. It is the power of God for our salvation.

As much as Easter was a momentous surprise to those ladies in the garden, it is also radically altering for all the children of Adam who have come since.

On Sunday His body was glorified at day break, now we pray that He breaks into our daily lives with His glory; that we grow in intimacy with God; that we are surprised by His sacredness and see Him sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. So that we may bow the knee and proclaim: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:1-6)

He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed – that we may live.

with love, Damaris