Women were the first to share the good news of the resurrection. Though they were not believed, then, we live now in the light first shone by these our mothers and sisters.

In this excerpt from his postil on the Gospel reading for Easter Sunday, the Lutheran pastor, teacher, and amateur playwright Johann Baumgart (1514–1578) considers the message the women brought from the resurrected Christ, the good news that will first comfort the dejected disciples, and after them, all sinners.

The Extremely Glorious Comfort of Resurrection

The Lord himself shows the extremely glorious comfort and fruit of his resurrection that he gained for us, which is to be elected the children of God, for he also dispatched the women to his disciples to announce his resurrection to them.

He told them to tell the disciples, “I am going now to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

He calls us all his brothers and sisters, and the children of God, which is our greatest happiness, for we are born in the flesh children of flesh and wrath. But God has brought us to be reborn through his great mercy in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to a permanent, spotless, unfading inheritance, that we are and are called the children of God.

Luke, ed. Beth Kreitzer, Reformation Commentary on Scripture, NT Vol. III, p. 479.