So I wanna encourage you to turn with me to Mark's gospel.

So the 16th chapter in where we hear the account of what took place that very first Easter where I don't doubt for a second, that when that tomb was empty, there was both terror and amazement. And it changed everything.

So listen for these words, “when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him, meaning Jesus and very early on the first day of the week when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb, so they had been saying to one another Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back as they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side and they were alarmed, but He said to them, Do not be alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, He has been raised, he is not here.

Look, there is the place they laid him on but go now tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of. You took ally there, you will see Him just as He told you, so... So they went out and fled from the tomb for terror and amazement had seized them at so and they said Nothing to anyone at so I for... They were afraid. Friends, may God richly blessed to us, the reading and the hearing of a portion of God's most holy and trusted word.

It must have been a very strange occurrence. They went to anoint the dead body of their savior, they went to see what had become cold and their own understanding the very one in whom they placed their whole trust and they're very being was dead. And they were simply going to obey the ritual laws. Let's prepare the body let's do what we're supposed to do. Let's take care of things, as the women of the day would have done.

But when they get there, the tomb is empty, the stone is rolled away, it's a massive stone all it's huge. There's no way a human could have moved it.

And when they get there, they realize that the body is gone, the tomb is empty, they don't see Jesus they don't understand what's happened, all they know is the tomb is empty, the egg is empty. Or all they know is that he's gone. And then someone says to them, who is not normal, who is supra normal he's not here, see, there's where they laid him he's not here he has gone on to Galilee, there you will see Him just like He said The... And they left with terror and amazement.

Now, the text says that, that terror and amazement. Is some kind of conglomeration, that somehow they're both scared to death and excited that somehow everything they'd ever known, has been shattered and yet all possibility still it is, there's terror and amazement. And the text says, They said nothing to anyone in.

We were told that on multiple occasions to... We've been learning these last many weeks throughout our Lenten season for the love of humanity that Luke Gospel, when Jesus got up, in the fourth chapter, he gets up and reads from the prophet Isaiah and he speaks this powerful truth that the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me and he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, to release the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are captive and we are those who get to do that as we get to set the captives free, we get to bring new life to others, we get to make it possible for those who live in darkness and despair to receive hope.

It's what Paul meant. I feel confident when he wrote to the churches in Galatia, the Book of Galatia, tells us in Chapter Five that Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore and never take on again, the yoke of slavery, never take it on again.