The Stone That Couldn't Stay Put

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Concrete buildings pancaked. Rubble buried entire neighborhoods. Rescue teams told families the math was brutal — after seventy-two hours, survival odds plummeted to near zero.

On day fifteen, workers pulled Darlene Etienne from the wreckage of a collapsed home. Alive. Dehydrated, barely conscious, but breathing. The French rescue team wept. Her neighbors, who had already mourned her, stood in the street screaming her name. A woman they had counted among the dead was standing before them.

That is the closest most of us will ever come to understanding what Mary Magdalene felt that Sunday morning. She walked to a tomb carrying burial spices — the ancient equivalent of a funeral arrangement. She had watched the crucifixion with her own eyes. She knew the math. Dead is dead.

But the stone was rolled away. The grave linens lay folded. And then a voice she recognized said her name.