Early Sunday morning, as dawn was just breaking, Mary Magdalene and two other women who were Jesus' friends came to the tomb bringing spices. They were asking each who would roll away the great, heavy stone before the opening to the tomb for them.
Then they looked up and saw that the great stone was already rolled away. When they went in, they saw only a young man, wearing a white robe. The women were afraid, but the young man said to them, "Why do you look among the dead for Him Who is alive? He is not here; He is risen. Remember how He told you that He would be crucified, but that He would rise the third day?" The women did remember, and ran to tell the apostles. But the apostles thought it was nonsense the women had made up. They would not believe them.
But Peter and John did believe what Mary Magdalene told them. They ran to the tomb.
John ran fastest, but he waited for Peter when he got there, so Peter could go in first. All they saw was the linen cloths that had been wrapped around Jesus' body, and also the cloth that had been over His head, all rolled up in another place. When John saw this, he believed. Then they went home.
The first person to see Jesus after He rose from the dead was Mary Magdalene. She stayed at the tomb weeping after Peter and John left. As she was asking the two angels in the tomb where Jesus was, she turned and saw Jesus Himself standing there. Jesus said, "Don't hold onto Me. I must rise up to My Father, Who is also your Father, to My God and your God." She went right away and told the disciples that she had seen Jesus, and this was what He had said to her.
That very same day, two of Jesus' disciples set out to walk to a town called Ernmaus.
Someone came and walked beside them. "Why are you so sad?" He asked. They answered him, "You must be the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know what is going on." And they told Him of Jesus' death. "You foolish men!" said Jesus, "so slow to believe what the prophets have told you! Don't you understand that Christ had to suffer all this before He entered glory?" Starting with Moses, He explained to them all the things in the Old Testament about Himself.
When they got to Ernmaus, they said to Him, "Stay with us tonight." They all sat down to supper together. He took bread and blessed and broke it for them to eat - and all of a sudden they knew He was Jesus! Just then He disappeared. They got up to hurry back to Jerusalem to tell the others:
+ Christ is Risen! +
+ He is truly Risen! +
As they were talking - it was in the room where they had locked all the doors tightly because they feared the leaders of Israel - Jesus appeared! "Peace to you!" He said. Some thought He was a ghost. But He said, "Look at My hands and feet. Touch Me; a ghost has no flesh and bones. Do you have anything to eat here?" They gave Him some fish, which He ate right there before them.
He said to them, "This is what I have been teaching you all along: that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the Psalms, has to come to pass." Then He opened their minds to understand these things. "It was written that Christ, the Messiah, would suffer and die, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in His Name, sorrow for sins and forgiveness would be preached to everyone, beginning from Jerusalem."
Thomas, the Twin, was not there when Jesus came the first time. He did not believe the others. "Unless I can touch the marks of the nails in His hands," he said, "and the wound in His side, I will not believe." Eight days later, Jesus appeared to them again. This time Thomas was there. "Peace to you!" Jesus said.
Then He said to Thomas, "Touch My wounds, and believe." Thomas said, "You are my Lord and my God." Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. "
Jesus appeared to His apostles many times. He told them to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He promised to be with them every single day until the end of the world.
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