Love is a very powerful motivator. Their love had made them brave, but now it seemed there was nothing left to love. Even Jesus\u2019 body was gone and the manifestation of love they\u2019d intended was redundant. Love had brought these remarkable women back to the tomb that first Easter morning, but now, in the midst of their confusion, they ran and said nothing.<\/p>\n
Except, of course, at some point they must have stopped running and told their story because it is their story we\u2019ve heard this morning, their story that is recorded and honoured in Scripture, their story that gives account of the greatest demonstration of love ever known. \u201d\u02dcThis is what love really is\u2019, we heard in the letter of John, \u201d\u02dcnot that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his son \u201d\u00a6 to atone for our sin\u2019. And the story of that first Easter morning from Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, shows us the dumbfounding extent of God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n
\u201d\u02dcHe has been raised\u2019 the women are told. And eventually it is that good news that filters through to them, and renews their courage. Jesus was not where they expected because he is alive, victor over death and sin, and he\u2019s gone ahead to where he promised, to be with us always. God\u2019s love, made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, experienced the fear we all know and overcame it.<\/p>\n
These women, the first to witness the empty tomb are not listed among the disciples nor named as apostles, but, in their faithful following of Jesus to the bitter end and in the fulfilment of their commission to go and tell, they are both.<\/p>\n