Have you ever noticed that there is lots of running in those first stories of Jesus’ Resurrection? Mary Magdalene runs to tell the apostles. Peter and John run to the tomb. Why all the running?
Running is a significant action after Jesus’s resurrection. All of this running in the telling of the Easter story highlights the excitement and urgency of Jesus’s followers to confirm the news of the Resurrection. Can you blame them?
Witnessing Jesus’ resurrection would have been an incredibly transformative and overwhelming experience, filled with wonder, disbelief, and a profound sense of God’s power. Running is very appropriate. They are running because they have something to tell. There is something urgent going on that they must share. They run because they have something to communicate, and they have to do that right now!
The news of the Resurrection offered the Jesus’ followers a new perspective on life and death. They were now witnesses to a power beyond their comprehension, a power that had overcome death itself. This new understanding would have instilled in them a renewed sense of purpose and hope, propelling them to share their experience with the world. And it should do the same for us.
So, with lots of running, go and tell the world that Jesus lives!
Eugène Burnand www.artbible.info/art/biography/eugene-burnand