Ever go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? [Insert the equivalent destination museum in your community.] You cannot hope to see everything in that vast space in one trip. Visit with children in tow and I guarantee you’ll see the Egyptian mummies and tombs and the massive suits of armor on display in the medieval collection. Even though there are rooms and rooms of Old Masters paintings and Impressionist masterpieces, with children in tow be prepared to miss them on your first visit.

The four different gospels, with their four different angles on the empty tomb of Easter morning, are each unique for that same reason. The central experience — the historical veracity of the empty tomb and of Jesus’ physical resurrection — stands at the heart of all four gospels. But each community of faith stressed different details from the first Easter encounter. This makes the reality of the resurrection unique to each gospel audience.

Mark’s story might have served as a template for Luke’s gospel, but there are plenty of Lucan additions. As Luke’s scene opens it repeats some details found in all the gospels: an emphasis on the day, the day after the Sabbath, and the extremely early hour.

Although Luke notes the stone had been “rolled away from the tomb,” it is the interior of the tomb that is the focus of Luke’s attention — “the body of the Lord Jesus” is not there. The women enter fully into this empty tomb and cannot comprehend the absence of Jesus’ body. They experience “aporeo,” mental confusion, or perplexity. There is no immediate comprehension, no assumption that something miraculous has occurred. The women are as mystified by the empty tomb as we might be if, at an open casket funeral, there was no body to view.

To serve as interpreters, there “suddenly” appear within this increasingly unempty tomb “two men.” Luke’s text simply identifies these new arrivals as “andres”, “men,” but his description of their clothing reveals their true nature. They wear “dazzling clothes” (“astrapto”), an obvious indication of their angelic origin. Although the women do not yet know the reason for Jesus’ absence or for the sudden appearance of these “two men,” their instinctual reaction is to bow down before the dazzling strangers.

The meaning of the empty tomb is now made clear to the wondering women. Unlike Mark (16:6) and Matthew (28:6), Luke’s spokesmen first emphasize the miracle. Jesus is “living.” Jesus is not “among the dead.” The angelic spokesmen declare that Jesus “has risen.” They further elaborate on this startling news by urging these women-witnesses to “remember” Jesus’ own words, his own teachings, about what “the Son of Man” had predicted.

This call to “remember (“mimneskomai”), to recall Jesus’ words and commands and to see and understand how his words have now been fulfilled, is particularly emphasized by Luke. In fact, Luke’s text so focuses on this act of remembering that it omits any command to the women to go out and tell the other disciples what they have seen and heard. It is no new angelic command that has primary importance. Rather it is recalling the power of Jesus’ own words, the perfection of Jesus’ own predictions, that is at the center of this scene.

Although the angelic messengers remind the women of Jesus’ words, Luke’s text offers some new and important details. Instead of “elders, chief priests and scribes,” those complicit in Jesus’ death are now described more broadly as “sinners.” While Jesus’ passion prediction in 9:22 only revealed that the Son of Man would be “killed,” now the truly horrific nature of his death is spelled out: The Son of Man had to be “crucified.”

The Lucan faith community comes into existence with the revelation that, in response to the demand from the two unexpected tomb visitors, the women do indeed “remember” Jesus’ words, Jesus’ forecast. The new post-resurrection community first sprouts from this act of “remembering” even before any face-to-face experiences with the risen Christ, long before the Holy Spirit empowered their fledgling faith.

They are given no other directive. But this act of “remembering” emboldens the women to return to “The Eleven” (the new prime number of disciples) and report to them all they had seen and heard and “remembered.” Luke identifies these first witnesses by name, confirming that these women were close associates, had traveled with Jesus in Galilee, had personally heard his words, and had been present at his crucifixion and initial burial.

Despite this pedigree, however, the women’s testimony is dismissed out of hand by the remaining “eleven” disciples. The women’s words are considered nothing more than an “idle tale,” or “nonsense.” The Greek “teros” is the root word for the English “delirious” — an out-of-one’s head ranting and raving.

The only exception to this derisive dismissal would seem to be Peter’s reaction. Luke’s text echoes much from John’s gospel (John 20:3,5,6), as he records Peter’s sprint back to view the empty tomb and the discarded linen clothes. Without the presence and words of the angelic visitors, Peter does not immediately embrace the women’s testimony or expressly “remember” Jesus’ own words.

But he does “marvel” (“thaumazo”). Marveling is an attitude associated in Lucan texts with wondrous events (Luke 1:21, 63; 2:18, 33). Peter’s willingness to check out the empty tomb for himself and his “marveling” at what he sees set him apart from the dismissive attitude displayed by the others who heard the women’s report. Peter may not yet here have resurrection faith. But he has at least taken active steps in that direction.