Love Crucified Arose Intro

Lyrics

The morning of triumph begins in the quietness of the pre-dawn dark. Mary Magdalene steps out into the chill air and starts walking through the streets of Jerusalem toward Golgotha and the tomb nearby. She comes with spices to anoint the dead body. Since sundown on Friday, she has waited to be there just to be near the loved one, so violently taken from her, but the Sabbath intervened. Other women disciples rise early, put costly spices in their baskets, and hurry in the same direction. Mary arrives first. As the first rays of light fill the garden, they fall on the tomb. It yawns, open. The stone had been rolled to one side. Spinning on her heels, rushing past the other women just entering the garden, the frightened and confused Mary breaks into a dash back in the direction she's come. She must tell Peter and John. "They've taken the Lord out of the tomb," she exclaims when she finds them, "and we don't know where they have put him." Now it is Peter and John's turn to run. John, younger and faster, races ahead of his friend to the tomb. (And John, by the way, loves telling this story that he beat Peter. He's like 90 when he tells that story, so he's still really proud of this, see.) But he stops, that is John; John stops at the entrance, an obedient Jew. As he hesitates, Peter rushes past him straight into the tomb. Mary was right. The body of Jesus is gone. The grave clothes lie in folds with the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head folded and set aside separately. The fragrance of spice lingers. And that is all. Peter returns to the city to report his findings, wondering to himself what had happened. But Mary stays behind weeping. Stolen. The body of her Lord has been stolen. Of all the indignities and injuries heaped on their Master, this final desecration seems too hard to bear. Alone in the garden once more, Mary looks into the tomb. This time, two angels meet her gaze. "Woman, why are you crying?" one asks. Startled, Mary replies, "They've taken my Lord away, and I don't know where they put Him." Sensing a presence behind her, she turns. A Man is standing there. "Woman, why are you crying?" In her desperate state, perhaps averting her eyes, puffy with weeping, she mistakes Him for the gardener. "Sir," she pleads, "if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will go and get Him." Then the Man speaks her name: "Mary." "My Rabbi," she cries, and with unspeakable joy, she falls before Him, her arms reaching involuntarily around His nail-marked feet. This is "Love Crucified Arose."