RBWords

     Two sets of improbable preachers!  On one hand we have Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary," especially Mary Magdalene, whom tradition celebrates as the "apostle to the apostles" because of her role in being the first to proclaim to the apostles the news of Jesus' resurrection.  However, if we're not careful, we'll miss an even more improbable set of preachers - those guardsmen who tell the chief priests!  One wonders whatever happened to those guards?  Yes, they took money and spread the story that the body was stolen, but they were witnesses of the actual event!  For one set of "preachers," there was truly something to preach!  For the other there might be fear as to the consequences of having failed to prevent the very event that the two Mary's were running to announce to the apostles.  For both sets of preachers there was a common fact:  an empty tomb!

     Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary "on their way and greeted them."  The guards probably were trying to get their stories straight on their way into the city.  Did they snore their way through the resurrection?  What "story" did they tell the chief priests?  We know what story the chief priests paid them to tell.  And that story is essentially that the guards did snore through it all!  However, for Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, and then for all the disciples, and for all of us,the message was and is different:  the Lord is risen!  I hope we don't snore through it!  That empty tomb stares us in the face, but the face of the Risen Lord is what we really need to see!  He is risen!  Alleluia!  That is the news we need to proclaim!   AMEN