There was a young woman living in Washington, D.C. during the Second World War. Her husband, who had been stationed at a nearby Army base, was killed a year earlier during a training exercise - they had been married just four months. During that whole year, this young widow felt more dead than alive. She merely went through the motions of living. Her family and friends were worried about her and wondered if she would ever "snap out of it."

Easter Sunday came along and a friend asked the young widow to go to church with her. It happened that they went to hear the legendary Peter Marshall, who preached in an historic Presbyterian church which still stands in downtown Washington, a few blocks from the White House.

That morning, Peter Marshall spoke of Mary coming to the tomb and how her tears turned to joy. He described the sound of a wind rustling through the tomb as if the breath of God were blowing by. He described the sight of Jesus rising up from that cold, stone slab, swaying a bit on wounded feet and then walking out into the garden. He described the smell, "the whiff of strange scents which must have drifted back to the Man from that tomb, [the smell] of linen and bandages, spices and myrrh, close air and blood ...(Peter Marshall, The First Easter). By the time Peter Marshall finished that sermon, the people in that church felt as if they had been there in the garden to witness the first Easter themselves!

When the service was over, the young widow practically walked on air as she left the church and her friend couldn't believe the change which had come over her. "What happened to you in there?" she asked. "The weight has finally been lifted," the young woman replied; "now I can go on living again."