There is nothing peaceful about the tomb of Jesus. When the women arrived, they noticed that the stone had been rolled away. Suspecting that someone had broken in and stolen the body, they approached the open grave, only — to their infinite surprise — to spy a man in a white garment who said “the one you seek is not here.” It is at that moment that they began to suspect that someone, in fact, had broken out of the tomb. So overwhelmed, so disoriented were they that they ran from the spot — “frightened,” Mark tells us, “out of their wits.” Gathered round the tomb of a friend or hero, one might feel nostalgic, sad, inspired, but one would not, I suggest, be frightened out of one’s mind. The point is this: something so new happened at Easter that the tame category of wistful remembrance is ludicrously inadequate as an explanation.![]()
