“But the two men spoke to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here: he has risen!…’”

Their first question gives it all away: Jesus lives. The second statement repeats it with even more clarity: he is not here, not dead but alive. He is risen! The puzzling provoked by the empty tomb was given a solution. Bewilderment and confusion were met with a kindly question followed by an assertion. The dazzlers were offering these frightened ones a marker, a way out of the chaos, loss, and fear. Redirecting them, reassuring them. Gently resurrecting them from their grief.

The one whom you seek is not with the dead.

The one whom you seek is not here.

The one whom you seek has risen.

These are the first words spoken to the women by the clothed-in-light messengers.

A statement of truth. Words that would go straight to the heart of the hearers and be planted there, helping them in their telling others.

Absent and dead. What the women already knew.

Living and risen. What they are being invited to believe.

Living and risen are words we, too, are offered this twelfth day. Jesus is alive. Jesus is risen.

Resurrection is God’s work of undoing absence and death. In Jesus. In you. In the world.

Spend time today with the angels’ specific words: living and risen. Think about them but go beyond just thinking. Choose to embody them. Let them be your energy for the day, the fuel for your spirit. Embody living and rising in your conversations, your work, your rest. How does hearing and deeply receiving these messages from the messengers expand your heart, your faith, your being?

Prayer: Holy One, thank you for this glimpse into risen life. Help me trust the holy undoing of death you promise through Christ. Give me a brave heart that wants to live and rise this day. Amen. Alleluia.

Photo: Wesley, Frank, 1923-2002. Altar of God, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Original source: Estate of Frank Wesley.