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As his reason and clear mind returned to him, Nebuchadnezzar realized many things about Most High God. Things that he had only known about God from the lives of Daniel and his Jewish friends had now become truths that he knew for himself in his heart – as he had experienced God in his own life. His confession about God reveals these truths: 1. Most High God lives forever, and is to be blessed, praised, and honored. 2. His kingdom and dominion are everlasting and cannot be overthrown or conquered. 3. There is no one on earth who can compare with God. 4. God's will is sovereign in heaven and on earth. His plans supersede all others. 5. His authority is unquestioned and He is accountable to no one. I have shared public testimony of what I've learned about God through trials. I was invited to share with my church about the experience and lessons from when my mother suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm with subsequent heart attack and was slipping into a final coma that was expected to go into complete heart failure. God gave me Isaiah 55:8-9 to lean on through that experience where He said “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...”. After 10 days with death apparently becoming imminent, God revealed that His ways are indeed higher than any doctor or medical treatment. He miraculously woke my mother up, moved her through intensive care and rehab, and brought her home with 95% restored function and clear mind 6 weeks from the day she entered the hospital! To this day, even her doctors give Him full credit for her recovery. As I've also done many times in private, what I shared was that we each belong to God and His plans for us are sovereign. The doctors had plans limited by their knowledge and ability, and those plans were utterly inadequate in this situation because God chose not to bring healing through them. So often I prayed that His power and glory would be revealed to every person who was involved, and I confessed to everyone that whatever He did would be right. I don't know why He chose to preserve and restore my mother's life, but He did it - and in a way that is all and only to His glory! My testimony is this. God does not abandon His children when we are in trials. He honored His promises to comfort my grief, give indescribable peace to my breaking heart, and lead me in wisdom and strength as I held fast to my faith in Him and maintained an attitude of praise. He allows trials in order to teach us deeper things about Himself and ourselves, to grow our faith, to humble and awe us, to train us in righteousness, to give us opportunity to release everything to Him. God is greater than ANY trial and He has power to change everything, to give us a hope and a secure future. His answers do not always look like what we have asked for, but they are always the right answers.

According to these passages, Nebuchadnezzar believed that he was an independent, self-made man who had built the great kingdom of Babylon by his own “mighty power” and for the glory of his own majesty. His authority and iron-fisted power were unchallenged and all-inclusive. His magnificence was to be honored by all without question. People were dispensable when no longer useful, and his heart was hardened toward those of his kingdom who were in need. He didn't think he needed or owed any god, even Daniel's Most High God who had demonstrated such profound power in the past. When Daniel interpreted the king's dream that delivered Yahweh's warning of judgment, there was no timetable given and as weeks turned into months and months into a year, the complacent king didn't see anything happening, no need to worry or respond with self-reflection and humble repentance. He mistook God's mercy and patience for weakness and inaction. Ultimately, he completely ignored the prophetic word. In his pride, he saw himself as above all and accountable to none. Pride shows up in my life any time I choose what I want or think best over what God desires and knows best. It's revealed any time I act on my own instead of seeking and yielding to Him. Pride is when I esteem myself over others, when I try to fix things only God can fix, when I hold others to standards I'm not willing to live by, or when I refuse to see myself as I truly am. It shows up when I start thinking I'm the queen of my supposedly self-made little kingdom of accomplishment or influence. Pride is when I ignore God's direction and warnings and am lulled to think I can get away with it without consequence. And pride is even the true problem when I don't genuinely trust that God can heal or forgive or transform the hurts or old wounds or repeated failures in my life as I allow those kinds of things to rule with greater power than I'm accepting from God. The question about pride masking itself with humility instantly reminded of the pastor of a church I attended about 15 years ago. He wore his “humility” like a badge of honor. He became so proud of being humble that there was no longer any virtue in it. When you are humble in order to make yourself look good to others, you have actually become arrogant and proud.

Daniel advised Nebuchadnezzar to heed and accept his counsel, warning the king not to ignore the message from Yahweh given in the dream. He explained that renouncing sin was more than just saying the words, but meant an outward change in what you do. He urged the king to make righteousness and morality the normal practice of life, which required humbling himself in trust and obedience to the Most High God. Daniel identified Nebuchadnezzar's sin in saying that breaking off the iniquities in the king's life meant showing mercy to the oppressed. Centuries later, James 2:14-18 was written about how a statement of belief is proven invalid without demonstration of outward evidence, with the example of taking action to care for the poor and hungry with compassion. In verse 18, he said that our declaration of faith is justified before others (proven true) by the works we do (of righteousness produced in us by the Spirit). Paul also warned about people who “profess to know God , but they deny Him by their works” (Titus 1:16). The king talked about Daniel's God and respected His power in Daniel's life, but he revealed a lack of faith in Yahweh by the way he conducted himself in his duties of oversight. What we really believe is what we will ultimately do! Once we repent of our sins before God, our lives should also look different in how we live and care for others. As the mind of Christ enlarges within us and we grow in His character, we are to make righteous, moral, and pure living our normal practice. That type of lifestyle and heart for others grows as we grow in love for God and our neighbors. The most needy of our neighbors would be the poor, infirmed, and downtrodden. We are to share with them as God blesses our ability to do so. This might be in financial gifts or with gifts of time for service – or both. Knowing how and when to be involved is discerned with prayer, but I believe all of the Body of Christ has the compassionate heart of Christ and will be individually accountable for our response to that. God does offer conditions for His response at times. In general, He reserves His own action on His revealed Word until we demonstrate our acts of response (because our actions always reveal our hearts). There are several “if - then” scenarios in both the old and new testaments of Scripture. For example: “If my people...will humble themselves...pray...seek My face, then I will hear from heaven...forgive their sins...heal their land”(2Chronicles 7:14). “If we confess our sins [then] He is faithful and just to forgive...and cleanse”(1John 1:9).

To acknowledge that Heaven rules is to know and confess that God is sovereign over everything and everyone – and we are not. We are subordinate to Him. This would be very hard for a king who had absolute authority and unquestioned rule over a realm and its people. Humbling himself before anyone or any “god” was not within the framework of Nebuchadnezzar's understanding. He had no problem giving “props” to the undeniable power of the God of Daniel, but in his mind that God (associated with Daniel and Jerusalem, not Babylon) was not a higher power to himself. He saw himself as subservient to no one. Especially in America, I think we can relate to this as a nation of people who are used to the independence of generally having control over our individual lives. Here, we have no legal king and it's hard to imagine yielding to a sovereign who dictates what we can and cannot do with our lives. I also think this blessing of individual freedoms has made it more difficult for western Christians to acknowledge and accept that God is truly in charge of all. A self-sufficient spirit can have a harder time being humble and submissive. We so often jump in feet first to make plans, take care of business, and get things done before we ever seek God. And pride with a desire for control just come natural. It takes deeper understanding and great effort to humble yourself, seek Him first, and submit to Him in all things. I think that comes as our love for Him grows deeper.

Daniel was greatly alarmed, dismayed, and fearful when he understood the dream and its interpretation. Disaster was about to befall the king, a man who had been very good to him and who had publicly blessed Yahweh across the nation and declared full protection for the Jewish people who lived as captives in Babylon. Daniel did not want to have to bring such troubling news to the king. It was possible that his own life, and possibly those of his kinsmen, could be in danger if the king became enraged. We are afraid to say hard things to help our brothers and sisters in Christ for varied reasons. We don't want to hurt feelings or make someone angry. We don't want to face rejection or even persecution. Sometimes a person will accuse you back, asking what right you have to criticize since you're not perfect either. If the LORD impresses a truth with an honest burden to share it, we need to submit and obey. This would have to be covered in prayer for wisdom and guidance, and delivered with a gentle and loving spirit. Then don't let any negative consequences become personal. You might be in their path, but the anger would really be against the truth. Keep praying!

Daniel could take no credit that his life was spared and he didn't hold back in declaring in God's salvation of his life. He did not focus on the injustice done to him, knowing that the king had been trapped in a situation that couldn't be undone and was deeply distressed at the order that must be carried out. The king recognized that only Daniel's God could rescue him from otherwise certain death. And Daniel confirmed that Yahweh had done this very thing in sending his messenger from heaven to shut the lions' mouths because He had found Daniel's life of service and heart of faith to be blameless. This testimony made the king rejoice and decide to issue a decree that the entirety of his royal dominion was to “tremble and fear before the God of Daniel” (6:26-27). An experience from many years ago comes to mind when I know without doubt that God showed mercy and intervention to me. I was attempting to pass a tractor-trailer rig whose driver decided to continue to increase speed rather than let me pull in front of him. As we approached a curve, with time running out and a car coming toward me, I ended up running off the road to the left. My car spun around and began to slide back across the road toward the rear of the rig. The only thing I could see to my left at that time was the side of the trailer and the bottom bar under the back doors that I fully expected to hit right across/into my side of the car. There was nothing I could do and I was essentially frozen in fear. Suddenly, my car spun back around, cleared the road, and ended up in the field like I had pulled in to park there without harm or injury. All of that happened in mere seconds (and the memory of it still makes my heart race). I have always believed God showed me great mercy and an angel HAD to have given me a push to move me away from that truck at the very last second. There have been other situations, but that was the most dramatic for me!

Daniel followed the practice that mirrored David's record of crying out to God for help morning, noon, and night when he was facing his son Absalom's rebellion and betrayal by a traitor as he was pleading for God's salvation. (Psalm 119:164 indicates prayer/praise 7 times a day, so I wonder if the three daily prayer times may have been more of a generalized picture of constant communication with God through the day and not necessarily meant to define a “prayer law”, even though regular times for prayer are a good habit.) But Daniel followed that practice and I don't imagine that it was just a ritual for him. He genuinely worshiped Yahweh with a thankful heart and sought His direction, favor, mercy, and intervention. And this was certainly a time of distress when he would cry out to God on a regular basis. Daniel began his private prayer times by preparing to focus his heart and attention on Yahweh. Jerusalem represented the place of God's dwelling among His people and the divine promises of God to protect/deliver them, so he physically oriented his body and mind in that direction. He humbled himself by getting down on his knees to pray with recognition of his lowly inferior position before God. And then he began to pray. To my understanding and application today, the most important place where Daniel started was in giving thanks before God. This sets our attitude of approach to Him as one of gratitude for who He is, what He has already done, and what He has promised to do – no matter what our circumstances may be. Gratitude help keep everything else in proper perspective. Then Daniel moved on to make his petition and pleas for help. I could certainly do better in all these areas with regular times for focused prayer partnered with an ongoing conversation throughout the day.

In his responsibilities as a government official (and in his personal life, I'm sure), Daniel reflected Yahweh's own character qualities of being trustworthy, diligent, and honest. The ESV translates that “he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him”, which could certainly be said of God. Daniel obviously knew God in an intimate way. Now an older man who had worked in the king's service for many years, there was not one person who could find any grounds for complaint against Daniel even though many attempts were made to dig up some kind of "dirt" on him. His work ethic was impeccable and his record was exemplary. What a testimony of character! Being self-employed and working at home, I haven't had an employer or supervisor in many years. I have always tried to work with excellence and integrity.

Nebuchadnezzar began to praise and bless the God of the Jews who revealed unmatched power and faithfulness by sending a divine messenger to protect and deliver His servants. This deity received all the glory as the king commended Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego for their complete faith and trust in their God-above-all-others and for their refusal to obey, honor, or serve any other. They were willing to die rather compromise. "Are you willing to disobey a command or law...to lay down your life...to be faithful to God?" This is a serious question that becomes more and more timely for believers as the darkness of evil seems to gain new ground every day and this world draws ever closer to the coming time of final cleansing and judgment. Nine people at an American community college just lost their lives one by one, specifically because they refused to deny their faith in Christ as a gun was pointed at their heads. I have strong faith, but am humbled by lessons from Peter's denial. I can only pray for such courage should I ever be faced with such a situation. I do not ever want to betray Him.

Nebuchadnezzar was “astonished” to see the 3 now-unbound men walking around in the midst of the hottest fire possible with a 4th man, as though there was no fire at all. He surely must have been humbled in the face of such an impossible scene. When he called them to come out of the fire, he addressed them as “servants of the Most High God” in recognition that Yahweh had greater glory, sovereignty, power, or authority than any god they thought they knew. The Scripture doesn't detail the reaction of his government officials as they crowded around the 3 unharmed men to examine them, but certainly they must have been completely stunned, amazed, and perhaps somewhat fearful of whatever god had such a power that could not only preserve the lives of these Jewish men but even protect their hair and clothing from any trace of the fire and smoke.

These Jewish men answered Nebuchadnezzar that they didn't need to answer him. I don't think they were insolent or disrespectful as much as confident and certain. They knew that, despite their captivity in Babylon, they did not belong to the king but to Yahweh, and their God was the only one they would have to answer. They would not violate Yahweh's higher command for them never to bow down or worship any other gods or graven images – because they didn't want to ever have to face Him to account for their disobedience to His law. They considered the two differing commands and chose the one with greater weight and significance. They made it clear to the king that their higher call was to serve God and their confidence remained in the fact that Yahweh had the power to deliver them, should He choose to do so. What strength of character and faith! These men made it undeniable to the king that regardless of the outcome, they would not serve false gods or worship the golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar. They were willing to accept physical death rather than violate what they knew to be true. Their faith was firm and unshakeable, no matter what. This was mirrored just days ago in the horrific shootings in Oregon, when a hate-filled madman specifically targeted Christians and left behind nine murdered individuals as they bravely refused to deny their faith in Christ.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were reported by jealous Babylonian government officials who wanted to get rid of these captive foreigners who had previously found such favor with the king and enjoyed the prestige of more important positions than they themselves had. But this report dissolved Nebuchadnezzar's favor as he became enraged that anyone in the empire would refuse his direct order to bow down in loyalty and obeisance before his statue, which indicated submission and worship. This was considered a flagrant insult, even an act of disloyalty and perhaps treason, that these men would refuse to give him “proper” honor by bowing to his golden image. He would not tolerate such shameful and embarrassing disregard for his position and disrespect for his authority, especially in front of his cadre of officials.

Daniel 2:44 teaches us about the final kingdom on earth. It will be a domain established only by God Himself, with absolutely no input from a human king or kingdom. It will be a kingdom that will never be defeated or overthrown to be taken by another nation. This Kingdom of God will strike and crush and permanently destroy all other kingdoms, and it will endure forever! This kingdom is the divine Kingdom of God, where He rules and reigns in complete justice and authority. Jesus Christ came to bring that Kingdom to earth and it is currently partially manifest in His Body, the Church. But the Day is certain and sure when He will return to this earth to fully and utterly reclaim His authority and establish His enduring reign. At this Second Coming, He will not present Himself in His role as humble and gracious Savior and Redeemer. He will come as the Rock who will crush all rebellion and dissension, the King of all kings executing God's wrath, the Lord of all lords at war with all evil– with the purpose of completely establishing His literal throne and reign over all the earth. Hallelujah! We live in the days of Mark 1:15. Jesus has brought His Kingdom to us, to all who will repent of sin and rebellion against God and will believe in the gospel of His salvation. This present age of such grace precedes the Day of His return, the Second Coming. Maranatha! EVEN SO COME, Kristian Stanfill All of creation, All of the earth Make straight a highway, A path for the Lord Jesus is coming soon Call back the sinner, Wake up the saint Let every nation shout of Your fame Jesus is coming soon There will be justice, All will be new Your name forever, Faithful and true Jesus is coming soon Like a bride waiting for her groom We'll be a Church ready for You Every heart longing for our King We sing Even so come Lord Jesus, come www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKHsSbgbQZg

Daniel didn't presume to know anything except what Yahweh had so graciously revealed to him. He didn't make any attempt to draw attention to himself or build his own reputation. He didn't become proud or try to claim credit for what only Yahweh could have done. He used the situation as an opportunity to put the spotlight on the powerful God in heaven who gave the dream and vision to Nebuchadnezzar as a prophetic warning of days to come for Babylon. This God whom Daniel had sought to honor was now honoring Daniel before the king. 1Peter 5:5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you. Daniel was polite and respectful because of the king's elder status and authority as king and because of his respect and submission to Yahweh. He demonstrated the principles of 1 Peter 5:5-6 perfectly. We are called to exalt God, not ourselves. When we become prideful, God withholds grace and honor towards us. When we choose humility before Him, He had promised to lift us up before others when the timing is right.

Daniel and his friends, though innocent and uninvolved, were numbered in the group of untrustworthy advisers that the king ordered to be killed. (These advisers relied on pagan gods and occult practices to gain their insight, which could never reveal reliable truth and understanding.) The king was angry, made an impossible demand, and would show no mercy. Yahweh was the only One who could reveal the king's dream to Daniel with interpretation, which would give them favor and pardon from death. Daniel asked that his friends unite with him in praying to their God for this wisdom and mercy. He needed their strength of faith and prayer to bolster his own, and it was certainly true that they would all be affected by God's answer! It seems that God is especially pleased and moved by intercessors who are willing to take on the burdens of another and “stand in the gap” for someone who is unable to bear up alone before God in that moment. That could be a person who has no faith, or weak faith, or is entrapped in deception, or is in danger, or is too sick or wounded to pray for self. Sometimes He is seeking even just one intercessor whose prayer for intervention can be honored (Ezekiel 22:30; Isaiah 59:16). How convicting! Imagine God standing ready to act if just one warrior will unselfishly sacrifice self for another – but unbelievably, there is no one. No one to offer the prayer He wants and waits to answer. The Body of Christ is called to this same kind of prayer intercession for each other. James 6:14 is the classic example of praying together for one who needs healing. In the Spirit, we are united into one body and we're called to sacrifice self, think beyond ourselves, and invest in the highest good and best interests for that body. Spirit-led intercessory prayer is effective and it is powerful, as we pray for others according to the mind, will, and heart of God. Father is waiting for someone to rightly pray and expect His perfect response so that He is free to release the answer He desires to give! Only He knows what has gone unanswered in the lives of people who just needed someone to help represent them before God when they couldn't do it alone for themselves – unanswered because no one ever stood in the gap to ask on their behalf.

Daniel first asked the chief of the eunichs to allow him not to eat the king's food for the reason that this was defilement to his conscience. The chief seemed sympathetic but felt his own life would be endangered if the king saw that these captives became weakened or unhealthy. So Daniel respectfully tried a different approach. He asked the steward who directly oversaw Daniel and his friends for a 10-day test of only vegetables and water. I think he was fully confident that Yahweh would honor their desire to maintain inner purity and that they would be healthier than the others who ate the king's food. And Yahweh did honor their desire by giving them glowing health and strengthened bodies (even with weight and muscle gain!). God used Daniel and his friends to show us a real-life picture of living in the world, but not being of the world.

Daniel evidently knew what a healthy diet should be like, and perhaps the rich foods offered by the king were truly a detriment to overall wellness. The meats were probably from animals deemed unclean in the Jewish law, and they were not to eat fat or blood of animals. Regardless of speculation, the only reason Daniel gave for asking to eat vegetables for 10 days as a test was physical health. I think it may be a valid consideration that Daniel didn't want to associate himself with the implied covenant of friendship from eating the king's meals. With everything taken from him, it could have been that this was one issue that Daniel could control, one connection to Yahweh that he could retain, one clear witness and testimony of his faith and reliance on Yahweh – not the king. Daniel was a young man with a relationship of faith that was strong, even in the most desperate of situations.

Daniel and his friends experienced a total change of life when they were taken captive. In Jerusalem they were sons of nobility and royalty, well-educated with comfortable lives and assurance of place and position in their future, free to worship and serve Yahweh. Once enslaved in Babylon, they were stripped in every way of their Jewish identities, indoctrinated in Babylonian culture and philosophy, emasculated, and given Babylonian names in order to steal their past life and heritage. This was intended to degrade and demoralize, "marry" them only to Babylon, and give them nothing to hope for except Babylonian life. These particular verses don't reveal their response, but we know these young men did not compromise their heritage of faith, which they believed would be defilement.

My only experience with rapid transition between my customary culture and a new, radically different culture is from short-term missions trips to Central America. I clearly remember the first culture shock in Honduras of actually seeing what we would consider to be raw profound poverty. The language, the food, the way people drove on the roadways, the housing, the cultural customs would have been very intimidating if not for the oversight of the missionary couple we were helping. Being on a missions trip, of course, meant that my faith was encouraged and nurtured, so that wasn't a challenge.

Food is whatever substances we consume to maintain life, nourish health, provide energy, and promote growth and wellness. Jesus needed physical nutrition, of course, but what He needed more than that was spiritual food and sustenance. His passion to feed the spirit in the accomplishment of the Father's will was stronger and deeper than any need to feed the body. His greater desire was to maintain spiritual life, health, energy, strength, and growth – things eternal, not transient. Very rarely does my passion for God and His work completely override my worldly passion to feed self, sad to say but honest. Changing my goals in life begins with the plea that God will increase my desire for that kind of passion and clear focus, to the point I can't be satisfied with anything else and am willing to give up whatever is required in order to pursue His goals with all my heart. When I consistently nourish my spirit with the Word, time with Him, gratitude, and obedience, God will grow me into His will and plans for my life.

The resurrection of the crucified, dead, and buried Christ is the core foundation of the Christian faith. Paul said that without it, what we preach and testify about God, what we put our faith in and hope for in eternity is all in vain (1Corinthians 15:13-19). As an eyewitness, John recorded many details that give evidence that the resurrection of Christ is a true event that really happened. 1. Mary knew the exact tomb where she had witnessed Jesus' body placed and wrapped. The tomb had never been used before, so there were no other remains inside. This was not a case of mistaken location or identity of the body. 2. Pilate had honored the request by Jewish authorities for Roman guards who were stationed at the tomb to prevent a theft of the body. But the body of Jesus was not in the tomb when the women arrived before dawn to complete the burial process. 3. The tomb was open with the stone pushed to the side. Even if Jesus had not died, but only fell into a coma and then later revived, He had been scourged, beaten, and wounded to the point where there would have been absolutely no physical way for Him to open the sealed tomb, push away the heavy stone, and escape the Roman guards standing on duty there. Yet all of those things "somehow" happened. 4. The burial cloths were lying in the tomb undisturbed, with the face-cloth set aside and neatly folded. Thieves wouldn't have taken the time to unwrap the body, and a supposedly revived Jesus couldn't have unwrapped Himself only to leave the wraps intact. Peter and John confirmed this scene before they ever imagined that Jesus was resurrected. 5. Angels were there when Mary returned a second time that morning. They spoke to her and questioned any reason for weeping and sorrow. 6. Mary encountered, touched (most likely), and spoke with the resurrected Jesus. This wasn't a dream or hallucination. 7. Jesus confirmed He would ascend to heaven to rejoin the Father, and He redefined our relationship with Him. It is no longer one of the physical realm, but one of the spiritual realm. 8. Jesus concretely and specifically commissioned Mary to go and tell others. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof that He truly is the Son of God who came to redeem the world and that what He did pleased and satisfied the Father's demand for justice against sin and atonement for sin. It is evidence that everything God has declared and promised is true. It is complete confirmation and firm assurance that the promise of forgiveness and pardon before God, the adoption by the Father to be His own child, the standing as the Bride of Christ Himself, the gift of the Spirit within me, and the confident expectation of a future inheritance with Christ and eternity in heaven with God are ALL true and secured for me. This should change everything about my outlook on life. Reality is not of this world that will one day be brought to an end. It is of the heavenly Kingdom of God that is forever and ever, Amen! I serve a risen Savior!

Prior to recognizing Jesus, Mary was a grief-stricken emotional wreck who may have been astounded and shocked at her conversation with angels and was now completely distraught over His missing body. I think when she saw Jesus standing there outside the tomb she didn't really look closely at who it was through her cloud of tears and just guessed that it must be the gardener. But when she heard Him say her name, she knew. When you hear someone you love say your name, you know who it is. I haven't experienced what it's like to be reunited with someone you thought was lost to you. But I can imagine that you would want to grab and hug and hold, and never want to let go! And I can imagine Mary felt that way, at least to some degree. She had watched her beloved Lord and honored Teacher put to death and be buried, but now here He was standing right in front of her! She wanted to hold on to Him forever and never lose Him again, expecting to things to be as they had been before. But Jesus' resurrection changed everything. She could not cling to the relationship they had in the natural world where she and Jesus could walk and talk and minister and eat and laugh together with the disciples or where she could bow down and grasp His feet as she worshiped Him. Jesus would no longer be here to physically dwell among them, and He wasn't going to be here to establish the earthly kingdom in Israel that they were expecting. Jesus was promising something supremely better that she didn't understand yet – a spiritual position and relationship they would now share through their Father and God. The one she should now cling to would be the One He had promised to send once He returned to His place of glory in heaven – the Spirit who would live within her and never leave her. Jesus implied there was no longer a reason for grieving as He gave her the clearly defined mission to go and tell what she had seen and heard from Him. Salvation from sin and redemption to God had now been forever secured, and she was to go and tell the good news!

The presence of the grave clothes is evidence enough that Jesus' body was not stolen, for no one would have taken time to unwrap the body or desire to carry an unwrapped decaying corpse. The position of the linen cloths, lying just as if they were still wrapped around a body, is evidence enough that Jesus was not revived from a coma and somehow extricated Himself and then managed to unseal the tomb to escape. The presence and position of those wrappings give evidence to the fact that a miracle happened there! Jesus' body was resurrected from death and was transformed from the physical to the supernatural. On its own, profound grief puts the mind into shock, dulls clear thought, and numbs the senses. Only days before, Peter had experienced the crushing shame of denying Jesus, watched the horrific brutal death of the One he knew to be the Son of God, and then gone into hiding in fear of the Jewish leaders who had orchestrated that death. The misunderstood expectations and everything he had believed about the Kingdom of God had been shaken and shattered by that death. He and the other disciples had yet not understood the prophecies of Scripture or what Jesus had foretold to them about His resurrection, and they were not even thinking about that at this point. It was totally unexpected and bewildering to Peter when he saw the empty tomb. He was not yet ready to accept what seemed unbelievable!

Mary Magdalene was a woman of wealth from the prosperous city of Magdala. She was evidently single, likely widowed. When she encountered Jesus, she was possessed and directed by 7 demons, but was set free when Jesus commanded them to leave her. Mary became a grateful, devoted follower of Jesus and traveled with Him and the disciples, providing funding and support. I love the thought that she offered important ministry to hurting women who came to Jesus for healing of the heart and spirit as well as the body. First, I think these women were given the privilege of being first to see the risen Christ because they were still about the business of ministering. The disciples were hidden away behind locked doors and were paralyzed with fear as they focused on their pain, confusion, and questions. Their faith was bruised and weak. But these women rose above their profound grief and possible fears to honor Jesus by courageously stepping out to finish the task of preparing the body. Women are natural nurturers and caregivers, so this was important to them. Because of their faith, they were more open to "see" and believe the miracle. And then also, I think that Christ was making a declaration of the equal worth of women in His kingdom. The first people to receive confirmation of the resurrection and commission to go and tell others about it were...women!

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were both respected, influential members of the Jewish Sanhedrin (which incidentally, didn't believe in resurrection). Given the circumstances, it seems that it was good they were “secret disciples”. Neither was disgraced, shunned, stripped of position or means, even imprisoned by some revelation that they were “traitors”. So they had full resources to offer at this time of Jesus' death, ready for "such a time as this". They rose to the occasion at the risk of retaliation by the Sanhedrin and ruthless Jewish hierarchy. I can't help but think about the fact that with no honor or expense spared, in HIs burial Jesus was finally treated like the royal King He truly is. The details of Jesus' burial are very important to His story. He didn't swoon or fall into a coma and then later revived. He died. He suffered brutal, agonizing physical torment and He died. The Roman soldier confirmed it as he plunged a spear into Jesus' side, the disciples confirmed it as they handled Jesus' body, two prominent Jewish leaders confirmed it with their offerings of burial assistance at great risk to themselves, the women confirmed it as they anointed the dead and lifeless body. This is critical to establish because the miracle of His resurrection depends on the fact that HE WAS DEAD. And the resurrection is critical to the validity of the Gospel message. Jesus claimed Himself to be resurrection and eternal life (John 11:25). Paul later clarified that he was on trial with the Pharisees because of the matter of resurrection from death (Acts 23:6, 24:21). He also said the resurrection is what declares and proves Jesus to be the Son of God (Romans 1:4). Peter defined the resurrection of Jesus as the reason for our spiritual birth and our hope of life (1Peter 1:3). Romans10:9 declares that this resurrection is the foundation of the Gospel “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Jesus really died. And Jesus really rose again!