Farmer Girl:
It is very early. The kind of early where grief still hasn’t had its coffee and hope is absolutely not scheduled yet. The women go to the tomb carrying spices because when someone you love dies, you do the next right thing. You don’t expect miracles. You expect maintenance. You expect a body. You expect final.

They do not get final.

The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. And somewhere nearby, a group of guards is having the worst workday review in Roman history. Imagine being paid to guard death itself and then having to explain to your supervisor that, yes sir, the grave escaped. One minute you’re standing there with a spear, the next minute an angel shows up like lightning, the ground shakes, and you wake up realizing the thing you were guarding walked out. Career change imminent.

Two angels tell the women, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead". Which feels gentle until you realize it’s also Heaven saying, you’re shopping in the wrong aisle. He told you this. You just didn’t know how to believe something this wild.

The women run to tell the disciples and are immediately met with the ancient and timeless response of humanity: absolutely not. This sounds like nonsense. Resurrection always does when you’ve built your coping mechanisms around loss. Still, Peter takes off running. Which I love, because faith apparently looks like sprinting while confused. It doesn’t mention it here, but we all know there was a race. Peter loses. Again. Scripture is kind enough not to mock him directly, but you know it happened.

Peter reaches the tomb, bent over, out of breath, looking at neatly folded grave clothes like Jesus cleaned up before leaving. No chaos. No rush. Just quiet proof that death didn’t win and panic wasn’t necessary.

Later that day, two disciples are walking to Emmaus doing what we all do when we’re disappointed. Rehashing the whole thing. We hoped. We thought. We really believed this was going somewhere. Jesus joins them and they do not recognize Him, which honestly tracks because grief has terrible eyesight. He lets them explain His own life to Him. Incorrectly. In detail. And He just listens. No correction. No interruption. Just walks with them while they process being wrong.

He finally opens Scripture and shows them how all of it pointed here. And they still don’t recognize Him until He breaks bread. Because apparently Jesus’ signature move is still feeding people. Then He vanishes. Which is rude. But also effective. Because suddenly their hearts are on fire and their faith doesn’t depend on Him standing still.

They run back to Jerusalem and burst into the room mid-sentence like, you are not going to believe this. Which is immediately followed by Jesus Himself showing up in a locked room. Because locked doors have never been a barrier for Him. He says peace be with you. Not relax. Not calm down. Peace. As in, everything that just shattered your understanding of reality is exactly how it was supposed to go.

They think they’re seeing a ghost, so Jesus does the most human thing possible. He says touch me. And then He asks for food. Resurrection apparently makes you hungry. He eats fish in front of them just to prove this is not a spiritual illusion. This is flesh and bone and scars that stayed.

Then He opens their minds. Again. Because apparently that’s required more than once. He explains that suffering was not a detour. It was the road. That forgiveness would be preached. That they would be witnesses. Not theologians with it all figured out. Just people who could say, We saw Him dead. And then we saw Him alive.

Luke 23 felt like God went silent.
Luke 24 is God saying, I was working.

The guards are panicking.
The women are preaching.
Peter is catching his breath.
The disciples are locking doors.
Jesus is eating fish and rewriting history.

He is alive.

And death is still trying to figure out how it lost.