The Apostle Paul made it clear in I Corinthians 15:17–19 that without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no hope: “17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” 

But we are not people to pitied, but people to be envied, because as Paul states in verse 20, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.” Our hope is not a wish, but a confident assurance based on the promises of God, that the Lord Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead and so shall we.

In John 20:1–18, we have one of four accounts of the resurrection. Matthew, Mark, and Luke give us the other three accounts, of those that went to the tomb where they had placed Jesus body three days earlier, and not only discovered an empty tomb, but made the greatest discovery of all time—He’s alive!

It is my prayer, that as we look through the window of John 20:1–18, and more specifically Mary Magdalene’s encounter of the empty tomb and the risen Lord, that today, by the grace of God, be able to also say, “I tell you He’s alive.”