The morning after is always an afterglow of the previous day. If the night before was one of wild partying and heavy drinking, the morning after would be a bad hangover, with severe headaches while trying to recall what had happened or even how one got home. If the day before was one of unmitigated pain and sorrow, the morning after would be a feeling of unyielding misery, of the world slowly coming to an end, of tears misting the eyes constantly. If the day before was happy one, the morning after would one of abiding joy, of everything being right in the world, a warm and comforting afterglow of light, love and life.
The morning after Good Friday was a Black Saturday: bleak, dark, total loss and defeat. The apostles must have felt all their hopes and dreams dashed as they watched the events of Good Friday unfolding according to their greatest fears. They have followed and tossed their lot with a loser who had been condemned as a common criminal. And at the dawning of yet another day, the women in their group came to tell them that the tomb where they fearfully laid him was empty. What else could possibly happen to make things worse?
Now, I imagine them the morning after that first Easter: abiding joy, basking in the afterglow of the abiding presence of one who has promised never to live them orphans, wearing a smile that comes from the realization that, by the power and grace of God, he has done exactly what he had said he would do – he has risen from the dead. They were still trying to digest what has happened. They were only beginning to understand it all. They were seeing him and feeling his presence in a totally different manner but no less real than when he had been with them in flesh and blood.
The morning after may fade away eventually and be totally forgotten like a bad hangover. Or, the morning after may be the beginning of a totally new way to seeing reality and the start of a radically new life like the Easter experience of the apostles and the first disciples. I will allow and pray that the power and grace of the Resurrection experience also bring the afterglow of the morning after from that first Easter morn into my life and of those who are dear and near to me.
So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Matthew 28:8-10