Who Will Move the Stone?

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices. They intended to go and anoint the body of Jesus. The burial had given them a place to return to, and now they obtained what they needed for the work they meant to do there.

Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they went to the tomb. Mark gives the time as plainly as he gave the evening of the burial. The Sabbath has passed between the two journeys. The women who watched the body being laid away are returning to it.

On the way, they were asking one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?” Their question concerned the entrance Joseph had closed. They had bought the spices and set out, but the account gives no arrangement for moving the stone. They were still asking as they approached.

When they looked up, they saw that it had been rolled away. Mark adds that the stone was extremely large, giving weight to the question they had brought with them. He does not describe anyone moving it before their eyes. They arrive to find the entrance already open.

They entered the tomb and saw a young man dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side. The account names his clothing and his place before giving his words. The women were alarmed. They had come to anoint a body, and someone was sitting inside the tomb.

He said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here! See the place where they put Him.”

His words named the person they were seeking and the death they had witnessed. He directed their attention to the place where the body had been put. The tomb they had come to enter was open, but the work for which they had bought spices no longer had its expected place in the morning. They were being shown where He had lain.

The young man continued, “But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.’” The message gave them people to find and words to carry. Peter was named as well as the disciples, and Galilee was named as the place ahead.

Galilee had been the place where these women followed Jesus and ministered to Him. Now it entered the account again through the message they were told to deliver. They had come toward a burial place; they were being directed away from it, toward His disciples. The young man’s words reached beyond the empty place in front of them.

The women left the tomb and ran away, trembling and bewildered. Mark does not turn their departure into an orderly delivery of the message. They had heard the instruction and the promise, but fear accompanies them out of the tomb. At the close of this passage, they did not say a word to anyone.

The account leaves both things before us: what the young man told them to say, and their silence as they fled. The spices had brought them there, and the open tomb had answered their question about the stone. Now they carried words about Jesus going ahead of them. Mark leaves them running, with those words still unspoken.