The resurrection was as inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The Greeks did not believe in resurrection; in the Greek worldview, the afterlife was liberation of the soul from the body. For them, resurrection would never be part of life after death. As for the Jews, some of them believed in a future general resurrection when the entire world would be renewed, but they had no concept of an individual rising from the dead. The people of Jesus’ day were not predisposed to believe in resurrection any more than we are.

Celsus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the second century A.D., was highly antagonistic to Christianity and wrote a number of works listing arguments against it. One of the arguments he believed most telling went like this: Christianity can’t be true, because the written accounts of the resurrection are based on the testimony of women””and we all know women are hysterical. And many of Celsus’ readers agreed: For them, that was a major problem. In ancient societies, as you know, women were marginalized, and the testimony of women was never given much credence.

Do you see what that means? If Mark and the Christians were making up these stories to get their movement off the ground, they would never have written women into the story as the first eyewitnesses to Jesus’ empty tomb. The only possible reason for the presence of women in these accounts is that they really were present and reported what they saw. The stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty and an angel declares that Jesus is risen.

Read it all.

The Creator was not fooling around this morning in Surfside Beach, SC.#ThankfulHeart @AndreassenLena @debanjana05 @mzkarmaD @TommyCPhotogra3 @Tyler_Elkins84 @KendallHarmon6 @catsunrisechick @golferCraig8742 @JimCantore @AndrewWMBF @PratikSchumi #KindnessMatters pic.twitter.com/rDOK3pGmmr

— Jim O'Neil (@Jimmydreamsmb) April 1, 2024

“Without Easter, Good Friday would have no meaning. Without Easter, there would be no hope that suffering and abandonment might be tolerable. But with Easter, a way out becomes visible for human sorrows, an absolute future: more than a hope, a divine expectation.”

–Hans Urs von Balthasar To the Heart of the Mystery of Redemption (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p.39

I discepoli di Emmaus, Abraham Bloemaert pic.twitter.com/XqPVuGLbSj

— luciano (@luciano55321084) April 24, 2022

Listen to it all.

Lyrics:

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrow’d hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win.
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we may for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean wash’d from sin,
May live for ever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love thee for the same again;
And for Thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought;
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
The day of resurrection! Earth, tell it out abroad;
The Passover of gladness, the Passover of God.
From death to life eternal, from earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over, with hymns of victory. Amen.

O Lord, who by triumphing over the power of darkness, didst Prepare our place in the New Jerusalem: Grant us, who have this day given thanks for thy resurrection, to praise thee in that city whereof thou art the light; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit thou livest and reignest, world without end.

Christ is risen, alleluia! The Fathers of the Oratory wish all parishioners, visitors and friends a very happy and holy Easter! pic.twitter.com/JSpTlAiPDe

— Brompton Oratory (@LondonOrat) March 31, 2024

Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

–1 Corinthians 15:1-11

🍃Guten Morgen 🍃🌷🍃 pic.twitter.com/Mu4lF6reau

— 💫Stein_harmonie🍀🧚‍♀️ (@SteinHarmonie) April 1, 2024

Happy Easter from the Holy City! 🌸⛪️ pic.twitter.com/CNLTFOrXUP

— Explore Charleston (@ExploreCHS) March 31, 2024

From there:

‘It’s Easter morning. This morning, I want to remind you that it is on this day that everything changed. This is the central day for all Christians everywhere because on this day, Christ Jesus rose from the dead….
One of my favorite hymns that we’ll get to sing again now that it’s the Easter season… is “All Creatures of Our God and King…” There’s a verse in that hymn that used to trouble me a little bit because I would worry about people who had experienced the death of a loved one and who knew the sadness and the tragedy. But there’s also a verse in that hymn that says, “And even you, most gentle death, waiting to hush our final breath. Oh, praise him. Alleluia. You lead back home the child of God, for Christ our Lord that way hath trod. Oh, praise him. Alleluia.” You see, at Easter, even death becomes something new. It’s not the final word anymore. It is the penultimate word. The final word is Jesus’ triumph over death and the grave that we become a part of.
Easter Greetings to you! And I pray that this Easter season, you will live into the reality that death itself has been changed by Jesus’ resurrection. Hallelujah. Christ is risen!’

Guerau Gener, 1369-1408
"Resurrección de Cristo"
Témpera, pan de oro y chapa metálica sobre madera
1.862×1.152mm
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

"Cristo resucitó de entre los muertos.
Con su muerte venció a la muerte.
A los muertos ha dado la vida."
(Liturgia bizantina)#art pic.twitter.com/mtDqB3ZYzD

— Miguel Calabria (@MiguelCalabria3) March 31, 2024

Listen to it all and you can read more about it, including finding the lyrics, at Lent and Beyond.

The view from my bedroom window combines with thoughts of Easter to remind me of this poem by R S Thomas. pic.twitter.com/y5wb41QtlC

— Tom Holland (@holland_tom) March 31, 2024

Now. Christian, change thy note a moment. “Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” with joy and gladness. He does not lie there now. Weep, when ye see the tomb of Christ, but rejoice because it is empty. Thy sin slew him, but his divinity raised him up. Thy guilt hath murdered him, but his righteousness hath restored him. Oh! he hath burst the bonds of death; he hath ungirt the cerements of the tomb, and hath come out more than conqueror, crushing death beneath his feet. Rejoice, O Christian, for he is not there — he is risen. “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

Read it all.

Happy Easter. He is risen. pic.twitter.com/MsNW5VrkB0

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) March 31, 2024

This is the real meaning of Easter…

No tabloid will ever print the startling news that the mummified body of Jesus of Nazareth has been discovered in old Jerusalem. Christians have no carefully embalmed body enclosed in a glass case to worship. Thank God, we have an empty tomb.

The glorious fact that the empty tomb proclaims to us is that life for us does not stop when death comes. Death is not a wall, but a door. And eternal life which may be ours now, by faith in Christ, is not interrupted when the soul leaves the body, for we live on…and on.

There is no death to those who have entered into fellowship with him who emerged from the tomb. Because the resurrection is true it is the most significant thing in our world today. Bringing the resurrected Christ into our lives, individual and national, is the only hope we have for making a better world.

“Because I live ye shall live also.”

That is the real meaning of Easter.

–Peter Marshall (1902-1949), The First Easter

#HappyEaster 🙏🏻 #ShallottePoint @EdPiotrowski @medwick @ChrissyKohler @WXIIJackie @Em_I_Am @jamiearnoldWMBF @LeeHaywoodWX @dogwoodblooms @marioncaldwx @JustinMcKeeWx @StarboardRail @ThePhotoHour @Christina4casts @CMorganWX @AndrewWMBF @AlexCorderoWX @ScottyPowellWX @clairefrywx pic.twitter.com/pf4pRlANlP

— Mark Moore (@MMoore_hoops) March 31, 2024

The day of resurrection!
Earth, tell it out abroad;
The Passover of gladness,
The Passover of God.
From death to life eternal,
From earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over,
With hymns of victory.

Our hearts be pure from evil,
That we may see aright
The Lord in rays eternal
Of resurrection light;
And list’ning to His accents,
May hear, so calm and plain,
His own “All hail!” and, hearing,
May raise the victor strain.

Now let the heav’ns be joyful!
Let earth the song begin!
Let the round world keep triumph,
And all that is therein!
Let all things seen and unseen
Their notes in gladness blend,
For Christ the Lord hath risen,
Our joy that hath no end.

–John of Damascus

Alleluia – Christ is Risen pic.twitter.com/d8zVc3fAMZ

— Rochester Cathedral (@RochesterCathed) March 31, 2024

If I had a Son in Court, or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune, I were satisfied for that son or that daughter. Shall I not be so, when the King of Heaven hath taken that sone to himselfe, and married himselfe to that daughter, for ever? I spend none of my Faith, I exercise none of my Hope, in this, that I shall have my dead raised to life againe. This is the faith that sustains me, when I lose by the death of others, and we, are now all in one Church, and at the resurrection, shall be all in one Quire.

–John Donne (1572-1631) [my emphasis]

"He is not here; he has risen, just as he said"
Hallelujah#EasterSunday #HeHasRisen #EasterJoy pic.twitter.com/sQEDq4zoTO

— English Cathedrals (@engcathedrals) March 31, 2024

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may, by your life-giving Spirit, be delivered from sin and raised from death; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! From everyone at Durham Cathedral, we wish you all a very happy Easter

Read the Dean's sermon here ➡️ https://t.co/hv13REiQw4 pic.twitter.com/qjHjDlYBEf

— Durham Cathedral (@durhamcathedral) March 31, 2024

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy.

— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

From all of us at Salisbury Cathedral, we wish you a happy and blessed Easter.

📸: Martin Cook pic.twitter.com/rF088HHxwU

— Salisbury Cathedral (@SalisburyCath) March 31, 2024

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because thou hast broken for us the bonds of sin and brought us into fellowship with the Father.

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because thou hast overcome death and opened to us the gates of eternal life.

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because where two or three are gathered together in thy Name there art thou in the midst of them.

Thanks be unto thee, O Christ, because thou ever livest to make intercession for us.

For these and all other benefits of thy mighty resurrection, thanks be unto thee O Christ.

"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you."
~ Jesus Christ

Easter Brings the Budding Spring
🎨 Fidelia Bridges (1875) pic.twitter.com/lfTKnQt0p2

— Cian McCarthy (@arealmofwonder) March 31, 2024

Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.
Amen.

'Rise heart; thy Lord is risen…
I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought'st thy sweets along with thee.' (Herbert)
🤍Happy Easter! 🤍 #Easter2024 pic.twitter.com/RQBTWxi6sL

— Beatrice Groves (@beatricegroves1) March 31, 2024

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?”

And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, who said, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

–Luke 24:13-35

Resurrection. The risen Christ steps out of the empty tomb on Easter morning in 15th Century glass at Wrangle, Lincolnshire. The Roman soldiers are sleeping (the wakeful one on the left looks as if he could be an interloping fragment).#Easter #EasterSunday #EasterSunday2024 https://t.co/RrocxcypF9 pic.twitter.com/mL0Vu1rx30

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) March 31, 2024

All night had shout of men, and cry
Of woeful women filled His way;
Until that noon of sombre sky
On Friday, clamour and display
Smote Him; no solitude had He,
No silence, since Gethsemane.

Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
But Life again, but Victory,
Were hushed within the dead of night,
The shutter’d dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone,
He rose again behind the stone.

–Alice Meynell (1847-1922)

There's a rumour, a whisper. Something's happening. Could it be? #HolySaturday @gandkchurch @cofe pic.twitter.com/4xJz6oTEpv

— Fr Craig Huxley-Jones SCP (@FatherHux) April 15, 2017

This ultimate solidarity is the final point and the goal of that first ‘descent,’ so clearly described in the Scriptures, into a ‘lower world’ which, with Augustine, can already be characterised, by way of contrast with heaven, as infernum. Thomas Aquinas will echo Augustine here. For him, the necessity whereby Christ had to go down to Hades lies not in some insufficiency of the suffering endured on the Cross but in the fact that Christ has assumed all the defectus of sinners…Now the penalty which the sin of man brought on was not only the death of the body. It was also a penalty affected the soul, for sinning was also the soul’s work, and the soul paid the price in being deprived of the vision of God. As yet unexpiated, it followed that all human beings who lived before the coming of Christ, even the holy ancestors, descended into the infernum. And so, in order to assume the entire penalty imposed upon sinners, Christ willed not only to die, but to go down, in his soul, ad infernum. As early as the Fathers of the second century, this act of sharing constituted the term and aim of the Incarnation. The ‘terrors of death’ into which Jesus himself falls are only dispelled when the Father raises him again…He insists on his own grounding principle, namely, that only what has been endured is healed and saved.

That the Redeemer is solidarity with the dead, or, better, with this death which makes of the dead, for the first time, dead human beings in all reality- this is the final consequence of the redemptive mission he has received from the Father. His being with the dead is an existence at the utmost pitch of obedience, and because the One thus obedient is the dead Christ, it constitutes the ‘obedience of a corpse’ (the phrase is Francis of Assisi’s) of a theologically unique kind. By it Christ takes the existential measure of everything that is sheerly contrary to God, of the entire object of the divine eschatological judgment, which here is grasped in that event in which it is ‘cast down’ (hormemati blethesetai, Apocalypse 18, 21; John 12; Matthew 22, 13). But at the same time, this happening gives the measure of the Father’s mission in all its amplitude: the ‘exploration’ of Hell is an event of the (economic) Trinity…This vision of chaos by the God-man has become for us the condition of our vision of Divinity. His exploration of the ultimate depths has transformed what was a prison into a way.

––Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter [emphasis mine]

#HolySaturday “The Church is still in silence, the tabernacle is empty. Yet this is a day of the most radiant expectation – – we are in the presence of something greater than we can see.” Sr. Wendy Beckett. Jesus♥️Caritas pic.twitter.com/8UevSQ0Ckw

— Barry Naylor ن (@KaJuror) April 20, 2019

HOW life and death in Thee
Agree !
Thou hadst a virgin womb
And tomb.
A Joseph did betroth
Them both.

–Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

Pietro Lorenzetti
(c.1280-c.1348)
Entombment
c.1320
Fresco
Lower Church,S.Francesco
Assisi#HolySaturday #HolyWeek#DonneInArte #ArtLovers pic.twitter.com/D2qtUwoQ3d

— Alessandra Ciccolini (@AlessandraCicc6) April 14, 2017

In this empty hallway, there’s nothing expected of us at this moment. The work is out of our hands, and all we can do is wait, breathe, look around. People sometimes feel like this when they’ve been up all night with someone who’s seriously ill or dying, or when they’ve been through a non-stop series of enormously demanding tasks. A sort of peace, but more a sort of ‘limbo’, an in-between moment. For now, nothing more to do; tired, empty, slightly numbed, we rest for a bit, knowing that what matters is now happening somewhere else.

–Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

Burial of Christ by Carl Bloch (1834-1890) pic.twitter.com/lbjnI6ZZW9

— Eleutherius✝️🦬🇩🇪 (@Eleutherius23) April 8, 2023

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who as on this day didst rest in the sepulchre, and didst thereby sanctify the grave to be a bed of hope to thy people: Make us so to abound in sorrow for our sins, which were the cause of thy passion, that when our bodies rest in the dust, our souls may live with thee; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

#theartnotes

Francisco Goya was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his long career was a commentator and chronicler of his era.

The Burial of Christ, 1772 pic.twitter.com/5fghIluzCL

— The Art Notes. (@theartnotes) December 30, 2019

“By the grace of God” Jesus tasted death “for every one”. In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only “die for our sins” but should also “taste death”, experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb, reveals God’s great sabbath rest after the fulfillment of man’s salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.

–The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, para. 624

Holy Saturday is the ultimate time of waiting and lamenting. It’s easy to look back when you know what comes next, but Holy Saturday asks us to enter a death that seems final; without hope and without future. For the disciples, it’s the day that all stopped: when the future was… pic.twitter.com/hQK7GYAIf6

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) March 30, 2024

In the midst of life we are in death.

We grow and wither as quickly as flowers;

we disappear like shadows.

To whom can we go for help, but to you, Lord God,

though you are rightly displeased because of our sins?

And yet, Lord God Almighty,

most holy and most merciful Saviour,

deliver us from the bitterness of eternal death.

You know the secrets of our hearts;

mercifully hear us, most worthy judge eternal;

keep us, at our last hour,

in the consolation of your love.

[You, O Lord, are gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and rich in love.

As kind as a father is to his children,

so kind is the Lord to those who honour him.

For you know what we are made of;

you remember that we are dust.

As for us, our life is like grass.

We grow and flourish like a wildflower;

then the wind blows on it, and it is gone

no-one sees it again.

But for those who honour the Lord, his love lasts forever,

and his goodness endures for all generations.]

Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), The Corpse of Christ, c. 1582
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart pic.twitter.com/lzREHchK5B

— Marzena (@Marzena99557145) March 29, 2024

I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been, if you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you, you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.

–C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

No one wants to grieve. But today is important – God understands and grieves with us. Our Blessed Mother knows the sword pierced through the soul. And because God's sacrifice breaks apart death, we have hope in grief. May Good Friday be a reminder of God's profound love for us. pic.twitter.com/6rFXD43k9n

— Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta (@CathedralCTK) March 29, 2024

Grant, Lord,
that we who are baptized into the death
of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
may continually put to death our evil desires
and be buried with him;
and that through the grave and gate of death
we may pass to our joyful resurrection;
through his merits,
who died and was buried and rose again for us,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

As the Easter Triduum continues, here's the very touching Virgin and Saint John Mourning over the Body of Christ, fragment of a Lamentation of Christ, Master of Delft, c. 1500 – c. 1510. (Rijksmuseum) #GoodFriday pic.twitter.com/isAbUi0F9j

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) March 29, 2024

Read it all.

Good Friday commemorated across the world – in pictures#Religion #Christianity #Catholicism #GoodFriday #AroundTheWorld #InPictures #photography #Photos
https://t.co/CdugfdS4y1

— Richard Norman Poet (@ElmerPalaceSE25) March 29, 2024

Grant, O Lord, unto us, and to all thy servants, the grace of perseverance unto the end; in the power of him who for the finishing of thy work laid down his life, even thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Buen día!

"La crucifixión" 1597
-El Greco
Óleo sobre lienzo
312×169 cm
Representados la Virgen, Juan y María Magdalena.
Al pie de la Cruz, tres ángeles recogen la sangre de Cristo.
Visión nocturna del Calvario con carácter eucarístico.#Madrid Museo del Prado
Click👇 pic.twitter.com/NwwuLmIKEb

— Miguel Calabria (@MiguelCalabria3) March 29, 2024

..[Jesus of Nazareth] was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be “like God”–he was God.

Now, this is not just a pious commonplace: it is not a commonplace at all. For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death he [God] had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.

—Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company,1949), page 4 (with special thanks to blog reader and friend WW)

The Crucifixion and Deposition of Christ #GoodFriday
Bamberg State Library Msc.Lit. 1; Sacramentary; early 11th century; Fulda; ff.61v, 68v pic.twitter.com/wl69sE0cUx

— Ennius (@red_loeb) March 29, 2024