Then a dense fog settled over the city. The semaphore could no longer be seen. The message, "Wellington defeated," spread gloom and despair among the people. Then the fog lifted and the semaphore flashed the rest of the message: T-H-E E-N-E-M-Y. "Wellington defeated the enemy." This entirely opposite report spread like wildfire, turning despair into raptures of joy.

With only the knowledge of the first part of the message there was despair. But with the lifting fog, with the knowledge of the whole truth, there could only then be joy. People believed what they knew, but their knowledge was incomplete. Their hopes were dashed; their fears of a conquered Europe full blown. The trouble was their knowledge was misdirected, their conclusions were wrong.

It is quite the same misdirected faith which we encounter in Luke 24 as the women journey back to the tomb to anoint the body of their Lord. They had seen their Messiah hung from the gallows, the nails in His hands, the spear into His side. "Jesus Christ defeated" was the message, or so they thought. The fog which descended on Good Friday did not lift until the dawn of the first day of the week. As they retreated for the Sabbath rest a new Sabbath day was soon dawning as creation and rest joined together that first Easter morning. With misdirected faith they ventured to the tomb. But God, in His grace, confronts misdirected faith with the victory of the Gospel.

As the morning dawn broke the stillness of the night, the women’s mourning was understandable.

When the women went to the tomb that first Easter, they had experienced the worst. Jesus was dead—really dead. They had watched Him bleed and die on the Cross on Friday. They had seen His limp and lifeless body taken down and placed in a tomb. They wrapped His body as the blood slowly seeped through the linens. They had seen the huge stone rolled in front of the mouth of the tomb. They had seen the bitter tears of grief stain the faces of His disciples. The anguish of Friday led to the numbness on Saturday as they wallowed in deepest despair. These women had seen the worst. On Sunday morning they continued in their bereavement as they took spices to anoint His body and finish the work of consigning Him to death forever.

They came ready to serve. They had prepared spices for the body. This was a normal part of what one does for those who had died. Since His crucifixion occurred on Friday, they were unable to complete the arrangements for the body as with sundown the Sabbath observance began. In a day before embalming and concrete crypts, it was necessary that the body be wrapped in linen with pounds of ointment and spices in between each layer so that offensive odors would not emerge from the tomb. While this devotion appears good, it is rather misplaced. Their dedication to Jesus could not allow them to realize that He would not be where they left Him.

All they could focus on was what they were doing.

Their worship centered on what they were to do, on their preparation of the body, their worship of their departed Messiah. They prepared spices and perfumes since they knew death produces decay, stench. That’s a cold, harsh fact in this fallen world, graphic evidence of the rot resulting from the fall into sin. The women would smother the stench with what they would bring. It looks very pious, but it was very misdirected.

Their activity was nothing but self-effort to smooth their own pain. They were so focused on what they could do that they missed what God had done. They come ready to serve, but they have missed completely the one they are to serve. With arms filled with spices and sponges, they stand amazed at the empty tomb, because they did not remember what He said.

Certainly the women were more noble than the men. They at least were at the tomb. The cowardly disciples were hiding in the upper room. Self-consumed in grief, they would not venture out to even memorialize their Messiah. It may seem harsh to criticize the women for at least they sought to do good. But their good was useless, since Christ arose from the dead.

Far too often we too are guilty of the same hopeless faith as these women, such as:

* when we come before God arms laden with our own righteous deeds

* when we mourn for our own sinfulness and ignore the resurrection to new life

* when we demonstrate our piety with personal obedience to soften the anguish of our sin.

We bring the aromatic spices of our good works. But they only cover the death we bring in our own hands. They are a stench before God.

So, for some Christians, it appears spiritual to mourn and wail at defeat. Like the women, some see their job in our culture as nothing more than smothering a decaying body with sweet spices to prolong an inevitable stench of death. Engagement in culture is useless, like polishing the brass on a sinking ship, they say. So they disengage and spend their time wallowing in bereavement until Christ returns.

To this the message of Easter rings loud and clear. The brilliant sunlight of the new Sabbath tells us there is hope; the empty tomb echoes with a trumpet fanfare proclaiming a reason for joy. Death is defeated. The darkness of mourning was for but a moment and there is a reason to sing.

There is no need to quell the fetid smell of decay since death is defeated. We can add nothing to Christ’s work for He defeated death on the Cross and rose from the dead by the Father’s power.

Why then do we embrace sorrow? Why do we think spirituality comes only in the blue color of melancholy? It is because a misdirected faith which mourns instead of rejoices is a misdirected faith that looks to the past instead of the future.

The women looked back when they should look forward. They see the stone rolled away, but the memories of the Cross, the snares of death still hold them so tightly that in their grief they give no thought to God’s sovereignty. They step in the tomb, find the body of the Lord Jesus gone, but the snares of death still hold them so tightly that they give no thought to God’s Gospel. All they can do is "wonder." They remain bewildered for all they know is the cold darkness of the tomb. Their inability to leave the misery of mourning is because they still see only that Jesus died, that their hopes for redemption are dashed and the cursed fruits of the fall triumph.

All they can see is what they had seen. All they can know is what they had known. They could not see beyond the pain of death to what God did in Christ. The fears, the doubts, the disappoints of their present circumstance were all too pervasive for them to trust that God was good and was great enough to do what He promised He would do. They could only know the past; they could not, in faith, look to the future.

They went to the tomb, which in Greek is mnema. Just as we refer to a funeral as a memorial service, a time to remember those who have died, so in Greek the tomb was a place to be reminded. That is all they could do; remember the good times, remember the past.

It is very easy for us to look back. Often that is how we present the Christian faith. It is faith in something that happened, but we stop there. We speak of the Cross, a past event, without realizing that what God did two thousand years ago gives us grace today and tomorrow.

Like the women at the tomb we are content with memorializing Jesus as a dead martyr, a deceased saint. But while the Cross must remain central to our faith today, it is in the Resurrection that we are forced to see that faith looks beyond the darkness of the tomb, to see that we are now able to live today in light of God’s power.

If all we see is the Cross, then all we will know is that our sins are forgiven. For far too many that is the extent of the Gospel. While forgiveness of sins is certainly critical to our relationship with God, that is not the full Gospel. The good news which we proclaim certainly forces us to see that all my sins, past, present and future, are paid for on the Cross; the Resurrection takes me beyond my sinfulness and shows me the power God has granted us over sin.

Paul, in Colossians 3, drives home this truth as he reminds us that the past event of the Cross takes us to the present application of the Resurrection. It is there that we have grace to live as God commands. The Resurrection of Christ is our resurrection. A Christianity without the Cross still wallows in sin, but also a Christianity without the resurrection has no power over cancelled sin, either. In light of the Resurrection "...now set your hearts on things above." Without the Resurrection, you cannot do that. Without the gift of new life in Christ, you are stuck in the mire of your own sinful patterns. But Easter tells us that the power of sin is now destroyed.

So many people professing faith in Christ’s work on the Cross mourn their defeat by habitual sin. They sprawl in the muck of their own inability to change. All the while, with misdirected faith they mourn their own sin rather than rejoicing in Christ’s victory; they look to the defeat of the past rather than the victory secured in the Resurrection.

The Resurrection then is the point at which the Christian faith moves from just a faith in an historical event, as important and foundational at that is, to a faith that is powerful today. We are now raised, we are now seated with Christ in heaven. If we forget that truth, we will never grapple with the power of the Gospel message that we are now freed from the bondage of our own sin.

It is one thing to state the problem, but what is the solution? How do we correct the misdirected faith that latches onto the past without any thought for what God is doing now? How do we adjust our lives so that we see the Christian life as positioned for the future? The angel’s message gives us the direction we need.

This gentle rebuke, a rhetorical question, stopped the women in their tracks. Christianity is not about honoring one who only died. The angels questioned their very understanding of God. He is alive. The Greek is better translated here: "Why do you look for the Living One among the dead?" The one they seek is not just alive, but one who is life itself.

* This is the One who days earlier told Martha: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

* This is the one whose breath made Adam a living being. He is the one who makes us live. It is incomprehensible that such a one would reside in a cemetery. The self-existent One has always been and will always be. He is the author of life, so how is it that death would defeat Him?

* This is the One of whom John said that "through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men."

How inconceivable is it to think that the great I Am, the self-existent One, would be found among the dead? Why wallow in despair and pain over your sin if you really worship the one who conquered sin? Why live in fear of death if our Lord is alive?

This proclamation should constantly ring in our ears. The tomb is empty, death is defeated, Satan is vanquished, hell is powerless. Our faith does not stop at the Cross as though mourning our sin is all we must do. That Christ is raised, that the tomb is empty, is a constant reminder that the hallmark of our lives must be joy, celebration. Mourning is past; sins committed have been nailed to the Cross and now by God’s grace we have power over sin through Christ.

"He is not here." He was. The death of Jesus was real. The suffering and torment were not of our imagination. We must not think some phantom suffered. No, the nails were cold iron, the Cross was rough wood and the blood was warm crimson. The smell of death pervaded the air on Friday as He was placed in the tomb. But now, on this first day of the week there is a new creation. He was here, but is not now.

"He is risen!" Again, see the the tense. Not: "He was raised," but He is now risen never to die again. We must never leave Him in the manger or on the Cross, thinking that all we have is suffering. There is victory, there is hope, there is triumph. He is risen, today!

Since He is now risen, we too are now raised. As in Colossians 3, Paul in Romans 6 and Ephesians 2 draws the necessary connection that we too are now raised from death to life. As long as the grave is empty, we know we too have power over death. Sin is defeated never again to raise its ugly head. We have risen to new life, never to enter the pains of spiritual death again.

When spiritual defeat seems to be all you see in your life, when the same patterns of destructive behavior trap you in their power, it is then that faith in Christ’s Resurrection must be translated into the faith that you too are now raised. Death’s dark dominion is defeated.

Remember not just the Cross, but now visit the empty tomb. Remember all that Christ did. Do not just memorialize one facet. But what should be remembered? Not the darkness of the tomb, but the light of the new day, the early dawn. Not the defeat by death, but the victory of life.

What is to be remembered? Where should our faith rest? In the words that God’s one and only Son, the Son of Man, must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified. But that is not the end. The Gospel encompasses the suffering, the shameful painful death on the Cross, but we must also remember the victory over sin. The last phrase must also be remembered: "on the third day be raised again."

Crucified, yes, but also raised on the third day. The Resurrection is not an aspect of our faith, it is our faith. It is not just a line in the Creed we profess to be true. It us the great truth we must constantly keep before our minds. Belief in the Resurrection is not an appendage to the Christian faith. It is the Christian faith.

Did they really forget?

Three times Jesus predicted His coming sufferings, crucifixion and Resurrection. This was not a passing comment, but heard by all. It didn’t slip their minds; rather, they did not embrace its truth. Words like that simply have too much punch to be overlooked, forgotten. Interestingly, Jesus’s enemies expressly did not forget these words of the Lord. I read in Matthew 27 that "the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, ‘Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, "After three days I will rise"’" (verse 62f). Pilate granted their request and posted a guard. Surely the disciples and the women knew of the guard and why it was posted.

In Scripture to remember is to act in light of what one knows. Remembering is not just being reacquainted with a fact one forgot, but responding in action based on what one knows.

In Genesis 8 we are told God remembered Noah on the ark. It is not that God suffered a memory lapse, but responded to His promise. We are told, in Exodus 20, to remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy. God told Israel to help the poor by remembering that they were slaves in Egypt. Remembering results in action.

Remembering what Christ said, remembering the Gospel, will produce action. For the women, notice how they responded when they were pointed from despair to hope, from mourning to joy. The memorial of the tomb is replaced by remembering Christ’s words.

Notice what that simple memory does: they leave the tomb behind and now speak; they tell others what they had seen. Even though it appears as nonsense to those listening, they speak. But despite the foolishness of the truth of the Gospel, Peter ran to the tomb to see that it was empty. The joy of remembering the Gospel must spill out into what we say.

Don’t believe a partial Gospel. Don’t live in the twilight land between Good Friday and Resurrection morning.