Brave Women

This is the entrance to a chapel, almost a little church, inside the large Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  Inside this chapel is the cave in which the body of Jesus was laid.  Only six of us at a time could crowd into the cave.  The entrance was low, so we had to stoop to enter.  I am a little claustrophobic so it was a bit much for me. 
If someone had told me that the dead body that had been laid there the evening before last was missing, I would have done what Luke describes Peter as doing (24:1-12.)  He stooped down and looked inside, saw only the linen burial cloths, and went home.
But not the women who had come first to the cave!  They are easily the heroes of Luke's story.  They came to anoint the body for burial.  When they came in the early dawn they went into the cave.  Luke names three of them and says that there were others, so it would have been crowded.  He goes on, "When they entered they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were puzzling over this, suddenly two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.  The women were terrified....The men asked them, 'Why do you look for The Living One among the dead?  He is not here.  He has been raised!'"
Luke tells us that they went back and announced this to the other followers of Jesus.  So these women are the first to proclaim the resurrection.