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Early Easter morning—after the Sabbath—women, including Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Salome (likely alongside others), went to Jesus’ tomb to anoint Him with spices prepared before the Sabbath began. When they arrived, the stone was already rolled away, and the tomb stood empty. Scripture records that this followed a great earthquake, as an angel descended and rolled the stone aside.
The guards, overwhelmed, “became like dead men.” They would later report to the priests, who—continuing in their lawlessness—bribed them to claim the disciples had stolen the body. The moment mirrors the centurion’s awe on Good Friday: once again, a Gentile recognition of divine power breaking through human denial.
At the tomb, the women encountered the angel, who declared that Jesus was not there—He had risen—and instructed them to go tell the disciples to meet Him in Galilee. Mark notes that Peter was specifically named, a quiet but profound signal of restoration after his denial just days earlier. Mary Magdalene, lingering, mistook Jesus for the gardener until He spoke her name. In that instant, everything changed. He told her not to cling to Him, as He had not yet ascended, and sent her to tell the others. The Gospels also record that the other women encountered Jesus and worshiped Him.
The women reported what they had seen to the disciples, who remained in hiding. Their response? Dismissal. They wrote it off as nonsense—too impossible to process, too far outside the boundaries of natural expectation. Still, Peter and John ran to the tomb. They found it empty, the linens neatly folded, and left in confusion. We, as modern readers, see the full picture. But consider it honestly: placed in their position, would you have believed? Even with Christ’s repeated prophecies of His resurrection, this was not merely unlikely—it was categorically impossible by human understanding. And yet, with Christ, the impossible is precisely where reality begins.
Meanwhile, the guards recovered and reported the truth: the tomb was empty, and something undeniable had occurred. The chief priests, determined to preserve their narrative, doubled down. They bribed the guards to say the disciples stole the body while they slept. This lie spread—but it collapses under even minimal scrutiny. Roman soldiers sleeping on duty faced death. The story not only lacks plausibility; it places the guards in direct danger. And yet, despite what they had witnessed, the bribe held. Not because it was convincing—but because the alternative demanded surrender. The priests were not preserving truth; they were preserving power. And even in doing so, they offered one of the weakest cover stories imaginable.
Then there is the sheer weight of eyewitness testimony. Post-resurrection, pre-ascension, Jesus did not appear to one or two individuals in isolation. He appeared broadly: to the eleven remaining disciples (Judas having taken his own life after betraying Him), to Mary Magdalene and the other women, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to James—likely His half-brother—and, as recorded in I Corinthians, to more than 500 people at once. This is not a narrow or controlled group. It spans skeptics and believers, men and women, close followers and ordinary individuals, small gatherings and large crowds. Under Jewish law, two or three witnesses established a matter. Roman standards were similar. Even modern courts regularly convict on the testimony of a single credible witness. Here, we are not dealing with one—we are dealing with hundreds, all testifying to the same reality in a time when coordinated fabrication on that scale was virtually impossible. The evidentiary weight is staggering.
Brief Thoughts
How did we move from a day set apart to commemorate the resurrection to one dominated by rabbits and chocolate eggs? How did we arrive at a major holiday centered on…eggs? We pour money into candy, prop up bloated corporations, and call it tradition—while the substance of the day is hollowed out. What was once sacred has been repackaged into something trivial, marketable, and utterly detached from its origin.
And the origins of these modern “traditions”? They are not neutral. In ancient cultures, eggs symbolized fertility, life, and creation—appearing in Mesopotamian and Egyptian practices, in Zoroastrian spring festivals, and among Germanic and Slavic tribes. The rabbit traces similar lines: Druidic customs, Germanic festivals tied to false deities like Eostre (a name that should sound familiar), and even Egyptian symbolism. Some myths went so far as to claim hares laid and guarded sacred eggs.
Let’s be clear: what we now celebrate was infiltrated by paganism and elements of Satanism. Meanwhile, the Christian elements—and arguably the entirety of the holiday—have been completely stripped away. One of the most significant events in human history has been overlaid—then overshadowed—by symbols rooted in pagan tradition. The result is not harmless fun; it is displacement. The resurrection has not been supplemented—it has been replaced in the cultural consciousness. And all for what? A cartoon rabbit and a basket of sugar.
Think carefully about how something so central has been so thoroughly diluted. This did not happen by accident.
Godspeed
