before I was ready to ask.

I had not even fingered

the roundness and edge of it,

tested my shoulder against its painful weight,

stood contemplating its massive shadow,

or wept in the half dark for a miracle

I would not have accepted.

 

How can I want what I wanted

but never believed in?

Despair was at least articulate, unstrange:

I knew what the repeated question was,

endlessly safe from an answer.

Not this open grave,

this violation of my certainty, this

chill ecstasy I can no longer refuse,

this fear I flee from without hope

it will leave me behind;

this large, gratuitous terror

I cannot not seek refuge from

without complete betrayal.

 

You, beloved,

for whom I stretched my heart with grief,

rudely announce its irrelevance;

arising to my unreadiness

not with a comfortable word,

but to a world appalled.

 

Janet Morely, British poet and theologian

 

_______________________

 

 

Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they were asking each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” But as they arrived, they looked up and saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled aside.

When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The women were shocked, but the angel said, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body. Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died.”

The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.