The events of the first Easter morning are foundational for the whole of Christianity. One of the primary messages of Christian faith is that Jesus could not be held by the power of death.

The Gospels give varying accounts of the dramatic events of that Sunday morning. Matthew, Luke, and Mark generally agree that Jesus was buried in haste late on Good Friday afternoon, with only the minimum of preparation, so that His body would be in the grave by sunset, the start of the Jewish Sabbath day. The morning after Jesus’s grief-stricken friends observe the Saturday Sabbath, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of the Apostle James, and another woman called Salome visit the tomb to embalm Jesus’s body, according to Jewish custom. The women stumble to the tomb in the half light of dawn, clutching bags of spices, which they will use to anoint Jesus’s body and counteract the anticipated odor of decay.

In three Gospel accounts, an angel (or angels), shown here in Gustave Doré’s illustrated Bible of 1865, appears to Mary, the mother of James, and Mary Magdalene at the tomb’s entrance.

Turin Shroud

In Jesus’s day, it was customary for families to embalm a dead body in sweet-smelling spices, wrap it in linen cloth, and leave it until only the bones remained. From there, the skeletal remains would be gathered up into an ossuary—a bone box, or chest—which would then be placed in the family vault.

After His crucifixion, Jesus had been hastily wrapped in linen cloth and placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. When the tomb was discovered empty on the Sunday morning, the linen cloths were found neatly folded where Jesus’s body had been (John 20:6–7).

The Turin Shroud is a large linen cloth kept in the cathedral in Turin, Italy. The cloth bears the faint image of a body, and a bearded man’s face. It is claimed to be Jesus’s burial cloth, His image having been impressed on it when it was wound tightly around Him after death. This claim has been contested since the Middle Ages, and carbon dating tests strongly suggest the cloth is not old enough.

The empty tomb

As the women approach the tomb, however, the ground shakes violently. Out of their sight, an angel of God appears at the tomb’s entrance and rolls back the stone sealing it. The guards that the Roman authorities had posted to prevent the disciples from stealing Jesus’s body had fainted with fear on seeing the angel and run off.

When the women arrive at the tomb, they are astonished to see that it is already open. Wondering who has arrived before them, they look inside—but there is no one there. The rocky ledge, where Jesus had been carefully laid down before sunset on Friday, no longer holds His body. Instead, the women see a few strips of linen cloth, carefully folded on the spot where His body had previously been.

In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, the women then meet God’s angel at the tomb (Luke reports the presence of a second angel). The message the women receive is one of reassurance: “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified” (Matthew 28:5); “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5); and an explanation for the empty tomb: “He has risen! He is not here!” (Mark 16:6).

The women struggle to comprehend what the angel has told them. Jesus’s body has not been stolen—He is a living, breathing human being again. The women then hear the angel give them a task. “Go quickly and tell His disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him’” (Matthew 28:7). Galilee was a significant place for the disciples, since it was where much of Jesus’s ministry had taken place.

The resurrected Jesus

The women, “afraid yet filled with joy” (Matthew 28:8), turn from the tomb and head away to relate these incredible events to the other disciples. On the path, the women suddenly come across a man. It is Jesus, who utters one simple word: “Greetings” (Matthew 28:9). Falling to the ground, the women cling to His feet, realizing what the angel had said was true—Jesus is really alive—and they begin to worship Him. Stooping, Jesus encourages them to their feet and tells them to go and pass on their joyful news.

Women were not normally asked to give testimony in Jesus’s day, since they were considered to be incapable of presenting the truth. Here was a clear signal that God’s kingdom is turning expectations upside down, as women become the first to meet and then share news of the risen Jesus.

Raphael’s The Resurrection of Christ (c.1501–1502) imagines the reaction of the Roman guards. Mathew’s Gospel says they “shook and became like dead men” (28:4).

The Gospel of John

John’s Gospel focuses on Mary Magdalene’s experience that morning. Upon seeing the empty chamber, she immediately rushes back to tell the other disciples that “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put Him!” (John 20:2). Peter and John race to the tomb and look inside, seeing for themselves that Jesus’s body is gone. Peter and John leave, but Mary, overcome with emotion, stays by the tomb. She sees a man near her and, presuming it to be the gardener, says, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him” (20:15). It isn’t the gardener, however; it is Jesus. Through her tears, Mary does not recognize Jesus until He speaks her name. When Mary realizes who it is, she turns and clings to Him, crying “Rabboni!,” the Aramaic word for “teacher” (20:16). Jesus gently tells her to return to the other disciples to share the news of His resurrection. Back at the house where they were gathered, Mary bursts in on the others, shouting, “I have seen the Lord!” (20:18).

Mary’s mistake, thinking Jesus was the gardener, is a profound discovery: just as God planted the Garden of Eden at the beginning of the Bible, now, through Jesus, God is restoring that garden.

As Peter put it in his sermon a few weeks later, human authorities may have killed Jesus, but God raised Him to life (Acts 2:23–24). Jesus’s disciples begin to understand the logic of what had happened: if Jesus is alive, that means death is not all-powerful and that sin—understood to be the inevitable human tendency to turn away from God, leading to death—does not have to mar human life forever, but can be forgiven.

Thomas the Apostle doubts the man before him is the risen Jesus until he touches His wounds. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

Faith and reason

All that Christianity believes about God—forgiveness, salvation, and transformation—depends on Jesus’s resurrection. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

Still, the accounts of Jesus’s resurrection raise many questions and demands for events to be explained in terms of natural causes. In place of the Gospel’s explanation, some have suggested that the disciples experienced mass-hallucination or that local leaders hid Jesus’s body to prevent His disciples from removing it themselves and then proclaiming His resurrection. These theories do not explain why the disciples would later allow themselves to be martyred for preaching a message they knew to be false.

If the Gospels are to be taken literally, the women discovered an empty tomb; Jesus’s body was never found, there or anywhere else; and the women and other disciples met Jesus, not just as a memory but as a living person. Discovering what the resurrection of Jesus means is the concern of the rest of the New Testament, and the ongoing task of the Church today.

Mary Magdalene

One of Jesus’s closest followers, Mary Magdalene is remembered particularly for being one of the early witnesses to Jesus’s resurrection. Mary’s name indicates she was from the town of Magdala Nunaya on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Luke 8:2 records that she received healing from Jesus when He cast seven demons out of her. Grateful for the wholeness that Jesus had given her, she became a prominent disciple, accompanying Jesus on His final trip to Jerusalem and bearing witness to both His crucifixion and burial (Matthew: 27:56–61). Later tradition associated Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, the prostitute who anointed Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume while He was in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36–50), although most modern biblical scholars believe that this association is apocryphal.

It is noteworthy that several of Jesus’s most faithful followers were women (Acts 1:14) and that they continued to play key roles in the life of the early Church.

See also: The Divinity of Jesus • The Crucifixion • The Road to Emmaus • The Word Spreads