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There is a traditional character in English literature called ‘Everyman’. He is, as as his name suggests, the man who represents us all. We might say ‘Joe Bloggs’. In certain books and plays he will be the observer of the action: we are challenged, though his eyes, to find our own place in the story. 

Unusually, in a patriarchal culture, the Gospels give this role not to Everyman but to Everywoman. The women who watched Jesus die, who saw him sealed into the tomb, who so grieved his loss, are the first to know of his resurrection. Not only that, but it is to them that the task of telling others is given. 'It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women,' Luke writes, 'who told the apostles what had happened' (Luke 24:10, NLT). If an apostle is one sent to announce the good news of salvation, then the first apostles of the resurrection were women, including Mary, mother of Jesus. 

Even in some churches today this is seen as shocking. In the First Century it was a revolution. Jesus’ inclusion of women challenged the very fabric of the culture he was raised in. Before his death, this was a personal attitude. After Easter it is force at work in the world. Resurrection seals the deal. God’s love includes the excluded, loves the unloved, forgives the unforgivable, and is now backed by resurrection power. Jesus, who is now unstoppable, 'removes the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. He swallows up death forever'” (Isaiah 25:7 NLT). Who have you been excluding from God’s blessing that the resurrection is working to include?

'Overwhelm us, God, with the power of the resurrection - to love those you love; to forgive those you forgive. To include all you have included.'