The most important event in the history of the human race occurred very early on a Sunday morning.

Three women walked through the deserted streets of a middle-eastern city to visit the grave of a friend who had been executed by the authorities. One of the women was the dead man’s mother. Her son had been arrested, condemned and murdered three days earlier, then buried hurriedly without any funeral. The women were going to the grave to complete the burial rituals.

But they never did.

When they arrived at the cemetery they found that the grave had been opened up, and the body was gone. They panicked. They ran to fetch some male friends, who raced to the cemetery and climbed into the grave to take a closer look. It was a mystery. They returned to the city confused and frightened.

During the course of that day, one by one, those women and men discovered what had actually happened. Their friend, Jesus, who had been brutally murdered, was alive again. He joined them all for supper that evening and explained the traumatic events of recent days.

Gradually those ordinary men and women soaked in the significance of these bizarre events: there is life after death, they were seeing it with their own eyes.