The tenderness shown by both Joseph of Arimathea and the three women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome – was surely a beautiful thing (Mark 15:42-16:8). The contrast between their actions towards Jesus and the actions of all who had contact with him over the previous three days is great. Thoughtful and gentle, they came to his body to ensure a good burial. They bought linen and spices to care for the body. Their motives were the highest possible.

And yet they got it spectacularly wrong. For while they had come to care for the dead and while their great concern was the stone they expected to be over the entrance of the grave, a great aspect of the Kingdom of God had broken into the world – resurrection. Before then, however significant the emergence of the Kingdom, it all had a temporary feel to it. The sick may have been healed but they would fall ill again. The demonised may have been set free but there would other things to bind them. The hungry were fed but they would surely feel hunger again. Even the dead were resuscitated, but they too would die again. All of it wondrous, but all of it temporary, while death’s power remained. Now all of that was changed. Jesus was alive. Jesus was resurrected.

The young man waiting for the women inside the grave to tell them what had happened uses an odd expression. He refers to Jesus as ‘the man from Nazareth, who has been crucified’, as if he thought the women would not realise who he was talking about. But they all knew who’s grave it was, so why use that expression? Probably because he was keen to emphasize to whom resurrection had actually come. It wasn’t just to Jesus the Messiah, or Jesus the Son of God, or Jesus the second person of the Trinity – it was to Jesus the man of flesh and blood just like you and me. It was to Jesus from Nazareth from where nothing good ever came – a village just like ours. It was to Jesus who was crucified; dealt with unjustly in a skewed court; tortured and executed by empire. It was to this ordinary man that resurrection came to put right the wrongs. And it will come to us – for its purpose lies at the heart of this emerging Kingdom.