Resurrection Sunday: What True Love Does

“And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome had bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint Him.”  Mark 16:1-6.

Love doesn’t sit around,  and mope around during times of crisis!  Love doesn’t sit around on its "do nothing" waiting for someone else to do something!  Love doesn’t keep putting off til tomorrow, next week, next year what can be done today!  Love doesn’t make light of, normalize or trivialize serious matters!   Love doesn’t mope around with head hanging down, but looks up, prays up, speaks up, and stand up!  Love looks to the hills from which cometh its help…love prays and keeps on praying…love speaks those things that be not as though they were…love stands on the promises of God!!  That’s what love does!  That's what the women did on Resurrection morning.

The women who came to the tomb on Resurrection Sunday can teach a number of lessons about such love. We see our obligation to respond to the love of God with action.

True love leads to action.  Love led these women to seek Jesus that morning.  Some of them were the last at the cross and the first at the grave.  Love led these women to bring the expensive gift of sweet spices to properly prepare his body for burial. This shows how true love willingly makes heavy sacrifices.  The Bibles says, "This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  If anyone has material possessions and see his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."  (1 John 3:16-18)

Secondly, love leads us to see Jesus early.  The women came early in the morning.  This teaches us the time to seek the Lord is early. Early in life.  Ecclesiastes 12:1 states, "Remember your creator in the days of your youth.  Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go,  and when he is old he will not turn from it."  Early in the day.  Psalm 5:3 states, "In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.  This allows one to be with Him when the mind is fresh and bright.  In the early stages of everything you do, you ought to seek the Lord!  Don't wait until it is late or until things have reached the point of desperation. 

True love presses on. The women could have failed to go because they knew they would face soldiers, a stone, and a seal.  They refused to be deterred by what they were sure would be difficult.  When there is true love, it will push on through the obstacles.  Paul said it, I press toward the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Lastly, true love finds its rewards. Those who press forward in spite of difficulty always find more than they had anticipated.  The women sought the dead body of Jesus and found an angel and a living Savior.  The Bible says “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart”  (Jeremiah 29:13). Earnest seekers always find more than what they thought they were seeking.  This is what love does!