The Address of the Angel to the Women at the Sepulchre.
These verses naturally divide themselves into two heads. The first head includes the information as given to the women; and the second, the commission with which they were charged. Note:
I. The soothing character of the language which the angel employs; and the indirect yet forcible manner in which he recognises the devotedness which the women had displayed. "Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified." They had no need to be terrified at the glories of an angel, who could not be alienated by the indignity heaped on their Lord. They, who had come seeking the crucified Nazarene in the grave, were not unworthy to hold converse with celestial beings themselves.
II. But the women needed more than the quieting of those fears which the apparition of the angel had naturally excited. They wanted information as to the disappearance of Christ's body, and this was quickly furnished; for the heavenly messenger went on to say, "He is risen; He is not here; behold the place where they laid Him." There is something remarkable in the reasoning if such it may be called which is employed by the angel. He calls on the women to behold the place where their Lord's body had lain, as though its mere desertion were evidence enough of the fact of resurrection. And so in real truth it was, to all at least who, like the women, knew and considered the character and circumstances of the disciples of Christ, The supposition would be absurd to them, and should be absurd to ourselves, that men situated as were the disciples, and who had displayed a timidity which could hardly be reconciled with affection for their Master, should have devised and executed a plan which would have been bold in the boldest, and which could scarcely have succeeded under the most favourable circumstances, and with the most copious appliances.
III. The commission with which these women were entrusted. The glad tidings of Christ's resurrection were not for themselves alone; the angel directed them to hasten at once and give intelligence of the glorious fact. As the first news of Death came by a woman, so by a woman came the first news of the Resurrection. Sinner and sinful must always merge in the preacher of the Gospel; seeing that through men and not through angels is the appointed instrumentality. When Mary Magdalene was sent with a message to the Apostles it may have been designed as evidence that previous guiltiness disqualifies no one for office of preacher. He may but discharge it with greater fidelity on the principle laid down by our Saviour Himself: "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2,187.
References: Mark 16:6. S. Clark, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 268; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., pp. 228, 239; G. Brooks, Five. Hundred Outlines,p. 85; Church of England Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 211.