What can be more exciting that being spoken to by an angel? How we would want to tell of it, to share the wonderful experience! Why is it then that the women who went to the empty tomb and saw the angel, and heard him tell them that Jesus was risen, and that they were to go tell his disciples, kept silent out of fear? Surely being spoken to by an angel was enough to convince them that an extraordinary thing had taken place. Jesus had risen! They saw the guards laying on the ground like dead men, they saw the empty tomb, and they spoke to a heavenly creature! How does this not turn their mourning into dancing?

Perhaps the answer is because of exactly what happened to Mary Magdalene when she finally did tell them; they did not believe. Nor did they believe when the two disciples who spoke with them on the road to Emmaus told them that they had walked and talked with him.

We can laugh at their hardness of heart and nod our heads in pious agreement when we read of Jesus rebuking them for their unbelief. After all, we have believed!

Or have we? Certainly for those who have faith that Jesus, the Son of God, died and rose from the dead then they believe. But is that it?

Notice what Jesus commands them to do once they have been shown and finally believe that he has indeed risen; he tells them to go tell everyone!

It is completely consistent with God’s life of self-expenditure. We have nothing, are nothing, and doubt even what is given, but who we are is what Christ has made us to be. Though we did not seek him; just as the disciples did not seek him even after he had promised them that he would rise from the dead, he still made a people out of us by uniting us with his death that we might share in the life of his ressurection. What he is he made us, though we were in opposition to it.

And the command remains; “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation”. Is this just about preaching? Certainly that is the emphasis, and even that condemns us. For we are like the women who went to the tomb; we have been told, we know he has risen and his life is in us, but we fear the rejection. We tremble at people before we rejoice in the risen Christ.

And yet there’s more. We were not given this life only to talk about; but we were given it to pour it out. Jesus shows himself to the disciples, tells them the good news that he has risen, and then immediately sends them out to do the same: to give away what was just given them! That is the very essence of the gospel. It is the only thing that can be had for sure and for always, because it is the only thing that can truly be given away limitlessly.

So now believe truly in the risen Christ! Not just the empty tomb, but in the life that left that tomb and now dwells in us. This is a faith that embraces what is given to such an extent that no longer fears the reaction of people, but only desires for them to befilled with the same ressurection.