And early in the morning, we are told by the Evangelists, these same women started to go to the sepulchre to anoint his body, and found out that he was risen. Why, do you think if they had thought he was going to rise that they would have left that sepulchre? They would have lingered around it; it would have taken more than a hundred Roman soldiers to keep those disciples away from the sepulchre, if they thought he was going to rise. Now, early in the gray of the morning, you could see these women going toward the sepulchre. They had got their spices all ready to anoint that body again, and they were greatly troubled, because they did not know who was going to roll away the stone. And you see them as they draw near to the sepulchre; and the sun has just driven away the darkness of the night, and that beautiful morning is bursting upon the earth, the best morning this world had ever seen. And one says to another, "Who shall roll away the stone?" But a messenger came from yon world of light; he flew faster than the morning light, and arrived first. And he rolled away the stone; and those men that had been sent there by Pilate, to watch and guard that sepulchre, began to tremble, and fell as dead men; they hadn't any power. One angel was enough to roll away that stone; not to let him out, but to let you and I look in to see that the sepulchre was empty, to let the morning light into that sepulchre to light it up that we might know that he is risen, "the first fruits of them that slept." Yes, thank God, he has conquered Death and the grave; and you can shout now, "O grave, where is thy victory!" He went down into the grave and conquered it, and came up out of it; and now he says, "Because I live, ye shall live also." by D. L. Moody
