Come and see… Now go and tell
“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” Mark chapter 16 verses 6-8
In Mark’s gospel, two women both named Mary, visit the garden tomb on the first Resurrection Sunday morning. They find the stone which had sealed the tomb already rolled away, they encounter an angelic messenger who speaks to them about the risen Messiah and they see with their own eyes the tomb of Jesus is empty. And yet, we are told in verse 8…”they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
The angel said to them, “Come and see, now go and tell.”
This is the Christian gospel in a sentence: come and see for yourself and now go and tell someone else about it.
In the longer ending of Mark’s gospel, Jesus commissioned the disciples to go into the whole world, preach everywhere, believe and baptize. Life and death is at stake because if someone does not believe in the risen Christ, they are lost. And so, obeying the commission of the risen Lord, the disciples go out with a pile of evidence, with hearts full of experience and the risen Lord Jesus went with them everywhere they went.
Just as the risen Lord was with them, so too He is with us who believe. May the evidence of the rolled stone, the empty tomb, the heavenly angel, the testimony of the disciples, give way to an experience with the risen Christ, that we too may “Come and see and go and tell.”
Christ is Risen… He is Risen Indeed!
+Julian
Easter, 2015
julian dobbs 