If we pay attention to the glamorous commercial projection of Easter and the empty tomb events, often we are distracted by the usual denunciation of the good news of the resurrected Saviour.

However, as followers of the resurrected Saviour, Jesus Christ, we must remember the message that came through the graveyard worker, the angel of the Lord. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, and the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, came, and rolled back the stone and sat on it v2.

The significance of rolling back the stone is not for Jesus to come out from the tomb like Lazarus, but for his disciples, Mary, and everyone, to go in and see the tomb is empty and the Lord has already been raised from death to life.

The guards trembled from fear and became like dead men. But the angel assured the women, do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised vs 5,6.

With many catastrophic natural disasters, as well as human orchestrated, and personal silliness, difficulties, and pains, we are reminded again of the one that rolled back the stone, do not live as though every day were Good Friday.

Living out our call as Christians to be an Easter people can seem foolish, if not impossible. Today’s readings remind us, however, that we are not the first generation to face this hurdle, and that we can learn to see the presence of the living God right before us.

Often, though, we try to fit our understandings into the framework of our human senses and collective memories. The scriptures call us to broaden our views; setting our human experiences into the larger relationship and purpose of the people with God.

The Easter narrative in John 20:1–18, helps us as Easter people, to learn the essence of the Easter narrative of the empty tomb and the resurrected Saviour. And that is for everyone to know that the empty tomb means the resurrected Christ has conquered death.

As the first Easter people, Mary and the women were consumed with mixed feelings of fear and great joy, when they left the tomb after they were told that their Lord had been raised from the dead.

Suddenly, the resurrected Saviour, Jesus, met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ and they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him Matthew 28 vs 9,10. The words of Jesus dispelled the fears that gripped these women, and they became the first Easter people to proclaim the resurrected Saviour.

When the resurrected Saviour speaks truth into our lives and situations, it breaks all restraints that deprive us and so many of God’s people of peace, purpose, and potential to be free.

The word of Jesus has the power to roll back the stone of life, so that faith is not blind obedience but rather faithfulness to the sacrificial love of the resurrected Saviour that falls outside our everyday comforts. It is a faith not in power, prosperity, or prestige, but in the love that came from God through the resurrected Saviour whose love knows no bounds.