The Resurrection

189:4.1As we ap­proach the time of the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus on this early Sun­day morn­ing, it should be re­called that the ten apos­tles were so­journ­ing at the home of Eli­jah and Mary Mark, where they were asleep in the up­per cham­ber, rest­ing on the very couches whereon they re­clined dur­ing the last sup­per with their Mas­ter. This Sun­day morn­ing they were all there as­sem­bled ex­cept Thomas. Thomas was with them for a few min­utes late Sat­ur­day night when they first got to­gether, but the sight of the apos­tles, cou­pled with the thought of what had hap­pened to Je­sus, was too much for him. He looked his as­so­ciates over and im­me­di­ately left the room, go­ing to the home of Si­mon in Beth­page, where he thought to grieve over his trou­bles in soli­tude. The apos­tles all suf­fered, not so much from doubt and de­spair as from fear, grief, and shame.

189:4.2At the home of Nicode­mus there were gath­ered to­gether, with David Zeb­e­dee and Joseph of Ari­mathea, some twelve or fif­teen of the more promi­nent of the Je­ru­sa­lem dis­ci­ples of Je­sus. At the home of Joseph of Ari­mathea there were some fif­teen or twenty of the lead­ing women be­liev­ers. Only these women abode in Joseph’s house, and they had kept close within dur­ing the hours of the Sab­bath day and the evening af­ter the Sab­bath, so that they were ig­no­rant of the mil­i­tary guard on watch at the tomb; nei­ther did they know that a sec­ond stone had been rolled in front of the tomb, and that both of these stones had been placed un­der the seal of Pi­late.

189:4.3A lit­tle be­fore three o’clock this Sun­day morn­ing, when the first signs of day be­gan to ap­pear in the east, five of the women started out for the tomb of Je­sus. They had pre­pared an abun­dance of spe­cial em­balm­ing lo­tions, and they car­ried many linen ban­dages with them. It was their pur­pose more thor­oughly to give the body of Je­sus its death anoint­ing and more care­fully to wrap it up with the new ban­dages.

189:4.4The women who went on this mis­sion of anoint­ing Je­sus’ body were: Mary Mag­da­lene, Mary the mother of the Al­pheus twins, Sa­lome the mother of the Zeb­e­dee broth­ers, Joanna the wife of Chuza, and Su­sanna the daugh­ter of Ezra of Alexan­dria.

189:4.5It was about half past three o’clock when the five women, laden with their oint­ments, ar­rived be­fore the empty tomb. As they passed out of the Da­mas­cus gate, they en­coun­tered a num­ber of sol­diers flee­ing into the city more or less panic-stricken, and this caused them to pause for a few min­utes; but when noth­ing more de­vel­oped, they re­sumed their jour­ney.

189:4.6They were greatly sur­prised to see the stone rolled away from the en­trance to the tomb, inas­much as they had said among them­selves on the way out, “Who will help us roll away the stone?” They set down their bur­dens and be­gan to look upon one an­other in fear and with great amaze­ment. While they stood there, atrem­ble with fear, Mary Mag­da­lene ven­tured around the smaller stone and dared to en­ter the open sepul­chre. This tomb of Joseph was in his gar­den on the hill­side on the east­ern side of the road, and it also faced to­ward the east. By this hour there was just enough of the dawn of a new day to en­able Mary to look back to the place where the Mas­ter’s body had lain and to dis­cern that it was gone. In the re­cess of stone where they had laid Je­sus, Mary saw only the folded nap­kin where his head had rested and the ban­dages where­with he had been wrapped ly­ing in­tact and as they had rested on the stone be­fore the ce­les­tial hosts re­moved the body. The cov­er­ing sheet lay at the foot of the burial niche.

189:4.7Af­ter Mary had tar­ried in the door­way of the tomb for a few mo­ments (she did not see dis­tinctly when she first en­tered the tomb), she saw that Je­sus’ body was gone and in its place only these grave cloths, and she ut­tered a cry of alarm and an­guish. All the women were ex­ceed­ingly ner­vous; they had been on edge ever since meet­ing the pan­icky sol­diers at the city gate, and when Mary ut­tered this scream of an­guish, they were ter­ror-stricken and fled in great haste. And they did not stop un­til they had run all the way to the Da­mas­cus gate. By this time Joanna was con­science-stricken that they had de­serted Mary; she ral­lied her com­pan­ions, and they started back for the tomb.

189:4.8As they drew near the sepul­chre, the fright­ened Mag­da­lene, who was even more ter­ror­ized when she failed to find her sis­ters wait­ing when she came out of the tomb, now rushed up to them, ex­cit­edly ex­claim­ing: “He is not there—they have taken him away!” And she led them back to the tomb, and they all en­tered and saw that it was empty.

189:4.9All five of the women then sat down on the stone near the en­trance and talked over the sit­u­a­tion. It had not yet oc­curred to them that Je­sus had been res­ur­rected. They had been by them­selves over the Sab­bath, and they con­jec­tured that the body had been moved to an­other rest­ing place. But when they pon­dered such a so­lu­tion of their dilemma, they were at a loss to ac­count for the or­derly ar­range­ment of the grave cloths; how could the body have been re­moved since the very ban­dages in which it was wrapped were left in po­si­tion and ap­par­ently in­tact on the burial shelf?

189:4.10As these women sat there in the early hours of the dawn of this new day, they looked to one side and ob­served a silent and mo­tion­less stranger. For a mo­ment they were again fright­ened, but Mary Mag­da­lene, rush­ing to­ward him and ad­dress­ing him as if she thought he might be the care­taker of the gar­den, said, “Where have you taken the Mas­ter? Where have they laid him? Tell us that we may go and get him.” When the stranger did not an­swer Mary, she be­gan to weep. Then spoke Je­sus to them, say­ing, “Whom do you seek?” Mary said: “We seek for Je­sus who was laid to rest in Joseph’s tomb, but he is gone. Do you know where they have taken him?” Then said Je­sus: “Did not this Je­sus tell you, even in Gal­i­lee, that he would die, but that he would rise again?” These words star­tled the women, but the Mas­ter was so changed that they did not yet rec­og­nize him with his back turned to the dim light. And as they pon­dered his words, he ad­dressed the Mag­da­lene with a fa­mil­iar voice, say­ing, “Mary.” And when she heard that word of well-known sym­pa­thy and af­fec­tion­ate greet­ing, she knew it was the voice of the Mas­ter, and she rushed to kneel at his feet while she ex­claimed, “My Lord, and my Mas­ter!” And all of the other women rec­og­nized that it was the Mas­ter who stood be­fore them in glo­ri­fied form, and they quickly knelt be­fore him.

189:4.11These hu­man eyes were en­abled to see the mor­ontia form of Je­sus be­cause of the spe­cial min­istry of the trans­form­ers and the mid­way­ers in as­so­ci­a­tion with cer­tain of the mor­ontia per­son­al­i­ties then ac­com­pa­ny­ing Je­sus.

189:4.12As Mary sought to em­brace his feet, Je­sus said: “Touch me not, Mary, for I am not as you knew me in the flesh. In this form will I tarry with you for a sea­son be­fore I as­cend to the Fa­ther. But go, all of you, now and tell my apos­tles—and Pe­ter—that I have risen, and that you have talked with me.”

189:4.13Af­ter these women had re­cov­ered from the shock of their amaze­ment, they has­tened back to the city and to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they re­lated to the ten apos­tles all that had hap­pened to them; but the apos­tles were not in­clined to be­lieve them. They thought at first that the women had seen a vi­sion, but when Mary Mag­da­lene re­peated the words which Je­sus had spo­ken to them, and when Pe­ter heard his name, he rushed out of the up­per cham­ber, fol­lowed closely by John, in great haste to reach the tomb and see these things for him­self.

189:4.14The women re­peated the story of talk­ing with Je­sus to the other apos­tles, but they would not be­lieve; and they would not go to find out for them­selves as had Pe­ter and John.