Alarmed, the women cried out. They tried to keep their balance without dropping their precious burial spices and perfumes. A man clothed in brilliant white with a radiant appearance suddenly stood before the tomb. Without a word, he looked at the soldiers, and they collapsed to the ground.
Mary Magdalene dropped to her knees in fear. “It is the angel of the Lord!” she cried. “Cover your eyes!”
The angel grasped the heavy stone with both hands. With no effort, he broke the stone away from the concrete seal, and rolled it away. With a gentle voice, the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know you seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples this message, ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.’” The angel bent down and stepped inside the tomb. The women followed. He sat down where Yeshua’s body had been and gestured with his hand. “He has risen! He is not here.”
Trembling and bewildered, the women hurried out of the tomb. They ran through the garden without a backward glance. Out of breath and shaking, the elder Mary called to the others to stop. “What does this mean?” she cried.
“We must tell the others,” said Mary Magdalene. “But I know they won’t believe us.”
“My sons are with Peter at John Mark’s house,” Salome declared. “They must be told.”
They hurried to the house. When John opened the door, Mary blurted, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
Peter and John questioned the women for details, but everyone was talking at once. “John, let us see for ourselves!” said Peter. They ran from the house.
The women followed, but could not keep pace. John had outdistanced Peter when he passed through the east gate. When the women caught up, John and Peter were standing outside of the tomb, talking and gesturing. No one else was there, not even the soldiers. Fearfully, the women approached the open tomb and Joanna stepped inside. Mary Magdalene followed her and set her knapsack down near the burial linen. For the second time, Mary saw no one was there. The strips of burial linen were lying on the ledge outcrop and the burial face cloth was neatly folded nearby. The two women stepped outside and joined the others.
Peter said, “Come, we must tell the others.” John and Peter left the garden.
Salome spoke first, “Where did they take him? Why would the soldiers do this?”
“They didn’t,” said Mary Magdalene. “Remember how they fell as if dead when the angel appeared? They were still there when we left. They didn’t take our Lord’s body because the tomb was still sealed and they did not seal an empty tomb! I saw with my own eyes.” Not knowing what else to do, the women turned to leave once more. At the top of the rise, Mary Magdalene remembered she left her knapsack in the tomb.
Alone, Mary approached the tomb for the third time. Overcome with grief, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Her slender shoulders shook with the wrenching grief for the man who had cured her and taught her the compassion of God. Still weeping, she stepped into the tomb to retrieve her knapsack. Two angels dressed in white were seated where Yeshua’s body had been.
“Woman, why are you crying?” they asked her.
Too absorbed in her grief, Mary dismissed their startling appearance and didn’t question their presence in the tomb. “They have taken my Lord away. I don’t know where they have put him.” She closed her eyes and wiped away her tears. When she opened her eyes, the angels were gone, but no one had pushed past her in the narrow entrance of the tomb. Mystified, she stepped outside, scanned the garden, but didn’t see them. She saw a man walking down the garden path, but he was not one of the men who had spoken to her.
“Woman,” he said, “why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”
Thinking he was the man hired to tend the garden, Mary said, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” The man didn’t answer. Mary thought he must not have heard her, when she noticed the outline of his face, the kindness in his voice, and the depth of compassionate in his eyes. Desperately afraid to believe what her senses were telling her, she turned to run.
“Mary!” The man called to her.
Impossibly, the man standing before her was Yeshua, alive and healed. “Rabboni!” she cried out, and fell to the ground sobbing, but this time with pure, awestruck joy. She struggled to her feet and reached for him. He raised a cautioning hand and stepped back.
“Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.” Overcome with joy, Mary hurried from the garden to carry the message.
She ran to the top of the rise and called out to the others. “Come back! Come back! Yeshua is here! He is standing right there!” she pointed back toward the tomb. They ran back, but no one was there.
“Mary, you have been deceived by grief,” said Joanna, not even bothering to look around. “No one is here. You saw him die the same as the rest of us,”
From behind them, a voice called out, “I am here.” They whirled around, and overcome with awe, they fell at Yeshua’s feet. They cried with praise to God for returning him to them.
After her friends ran to tell the others, Mary Magdalene withdrew one of the perfume bottles from her knapsack. She smiled at Yeshua. “You are alive just as you told us.” She looked down at the bottle. “What shall I do with these?” When she raised her head, he was gone. With the sweetest joy she had ever known, she closed her eyes and savored the moment. Then she hurried to join the others.
Chapter 7
Early Sunday morning, Adas and his men were eating a light breakfast as they stood guard. The brilliance of the sun burst through crystalline clouds stretching from the horizon to the zenith. Adas thought the rays of sun light looked like the tines on a tiara. He took in a deep lungful of the clean air. If only the whole day could be this peaceful. Lucius pulled some figs, a half loaf of bread, and a short stick from his knapsack. He stuck the stick in the ground, and drew a line in the sand along the shadow to mark the present time.
“I swear, if this wasn’t our last day on this accursed assignment, I think I would desert this army,” Lucius groused.
“Where would you go?” Hektor mumbled, not really caring if he got an answer.
Lucius started to speak, but saw Adas was close enough to hear. “Honestly, I would never desert. They crucify you if you get caught. But when I retire, I will go to the mountains of Gaul, to the land of my ancestors, far from war and killing. I will find a wife and build a house on the land I will take for my pension. I will build a cottage for my mother nearby and she would want for nothing. They even say it snows there in the mountains. They say lakes turn into ice in the winter. It becomes so solid you can run a horse across it. They say the ice is like rock. I’ve never seen water turn into rock.”
Hektor was surprised at Lucius’s uncharacteristic candor, but he thought it to be nonsense. “I don’t believe such a thing can happen. I’ve never seen water turn into rock. Some people will believe anything.”
Falto snorted with self-assurance. “It’s just a myth. Any fool knows water cannot change. I’ve heard of snow and ice, but it doesn’t come from water.”
“What do you think snow and ice comes from, Weasel?” Lucius was annoyed that they would question his knowledge.
“Snow, if it exists, must be pieces of the clouds and ice is. . .I don’t know what ice is. I’ve never seen it. It’s just a word,” declared Falto, absentmindedly picking his teeth.
“And why do you think there is such a word, Weasel?” He spat the nickname with contempt. “Many