According to the Gospel of John, the very earliest response to the event of the resurrection was not praise, stark terror, ecstatic dancing, paralyzed fear, unbridled joy, speechless astonishment, or exultant song -- but running. Yes, running. In the early morning hours of the first day of the week, as it begins to crack across human consciousness that something utterly unexpected and world-shifting has occurred out there in the garden cemetery, the first people who experience this event react by running ... running all over the place.

First, there is Mary Magdalene. In the quiet darkness just before dawn, she makes her way to the burial place of Jesus. She is the first to encounter the great surprise of the empty tomb, but this does not enable her to believe in the resurrection --that wi…