Matthew 28:7

This verse takes place on the morning Christians call the Resurrection — the day Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified and buried three days earlier. Women who had followed Jesus came to his tomb and found it empty. An angel met them there with the announcement that Jesus was alive. The instruction to "go quickly and tell" shows this news was never meant to be kept private. The detail that Jesus is "going ahead of you into Galilee" is significant: he is not waiting in or near the tomb — he is already moving, already present in the places his disciples would soon return to.

Lord, thank you that you are not behind me in the empty places, but already ahead of me in the ones I'm walking toward. Where I am afraid or uncertain, remind me that the risen Christ has already arrived there. Give me the courage to go, and the voice to tell someone what I've found. Amen.

Notice the angel doesn't say "wait here and he'll come to you." The message is that Jesus is already ahead — already in Galilee before the disciples have even processed what they're hearing. For people who had just watched their teacher and closest friend die on a cross, this had to be disorienting in the best way. The one they thought they'd lost forever wasn't behind them, sealed in grief and stone. He was ahead of them, back in the familiar places — home, the lakeshore, the roads they knew — already there, already waiting. There's something quietly stunning about the word "ahead." It means that wherever you're going — the appointment you're dreading, the conversation you've been avoiding, the ordinary Tuesday morning — Jesus has already arrived there. You are never the first one into the room. That's not a slogan to put on a coffee mug; it's the actual logic of the resurrection. The angel told the women to go quickly. Not cautiously, not hesitantly. Quickly. Because there was nothing left to fear.