‘Beautiful in Taking up His Life again’

Abstract The silent flight of the three women at the end of Mark’s Gospel responds appropriately to the highpoint of divine self-revelation, the unique wonder of the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. Matthew writes of the women’s ‘fear and great joy’. Matthew’s ‘angel of the Lord’, who rolls away the massive stone from the entrance to the tomb and announces the resurrection, has a ‘face like lightning’ and reflects something of the risen Christ’s own beauty. None of the Easter narratives attempts to describe directly Christ’s beauty, but it is conveyed through the joy that his presence brings to the disciples. When Acts reports the Damascus road meeting, it is from the light of God that the gloriously beautiful Christ encounters Paul. What the apostle teaches in 1 Corinthians 15 about the glory of the risen body applies pre-eminently to the risen Jesus. The New Testament ends with the glory of the beautiful, exalted Christ of the Book of Revelation. Early Christians knew that the gift of the Holy Spirit involved sharing in the light and beauty of the risen Jesus.