A Remarkable Way to Tell a Remarkable Story

John 20:31 reads, "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

This comes at the end of the passage where John tells us about the resurrected Christ. Mary goes to the tomb to see that the stone was tossed aside and the tomb was empty. She runs and tells the disciples that someone has taken Jesus. Peter and the other disciples run to the tomb and they find the tomb empty and the burial linen of Jesus still in the tomb.

And while Mary was still outside the tomb, Jesus appears before her. And only after that, Jesus appears to the disciples, minus Thomas. And then we have that famous passage where Jesus appears to Thomas and invites him to put his finger in the nail mark in His hands and on His side.

All this and the entire story of Jesus was written for us that we may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that by believing we may have life in His name.

That's pretty important. What we're talking about is eternal life, eternal destiny.

And what I find so surprising about all of this is that the first person to witness both the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ is a woman.

Now, I don't say that because I want to demean women. I say that because during the days of Jesus, the words of a woman were not even allowed in the court of law. A woman's testimony was worthless during the days of Jesus. The people's perception was that a woman's word wasn't worth a salt.

And the most important story of human kind, all hinges on the testimony of an eye witness who was a woman!

If you wanted to fabricate a story about the resurrection of Jesus, you would never have the woman being the first eye witness to both the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ. That would undermine the entire story.

But you see, the disciples had no choice but to tell the story in this way because that's the it happened. There is no other plausible explanation for the way this incredible story is told.

In deed, a remarkable way to tell a remarkable story.

But there has never been another story more important than this: the tomb is empty, He is risen. He is risen indeed!