Resurrection, Awakening, and the Darkness Giving Birth to Light: A Reflection on Luke 24:1-12, Ephesians 5:9-19, and Luke 1:26-38
The women arrive at the tomb at early dawn carrying spices for a corpse, and they find the stone rolled away. Luke tells us they were perplexed—the word suggests confusion, disorientation, not understanding what they’re seeing. They expected death. They came prepared to anoint a body. Instead, they encounter two men in dazzling apparel who ask: Why do you seek the living among the dead?
This is the question the Resurrection poses to every human soul: Why are you looking for life in the place of death? Why do you keep returning to what’s finished, what’s buried, what cannot give you what you need?
But here’s what makes the nativity lens revelatory: the Resurrection follows the same pattern as the Annunciation. Both begin in darkness—literal darkness at the tomb before dawn, metaphorical darkness in Mary’s encounter with the impossible. Both involve divine messengers announcing what cannot be. Both require a response that changes everything. And both transform death into life through consent.
When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in Luke 1, he announces the impossible: You will conceive in your womb and bear a son. Mary’s question—How shall this be, since I have no husband?—isn’t doubt. It’s honest reckoning with reality as she knows it. She doesn’t understand the mechanism, but she doesn’t refuse the invitation. Her response is the hinge on which the Incarnation turns: Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.
Mary’s “let it be” is the pattern for all transformation. Not understanding first, then consenting. Not having certainty, then taking the risk. But facing the terrifying unknown and saying yes anyway. This is what the women at the tomb are being called to do. The angels don’t explain how resurrection works—they announce that it has happened and command remembrance: Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise.
And Luke says simply: They remembered his words. Something shifts. The perplexity doesn’t vanish, but they move anyway. They return from the tomb and tell the eleven. The inner work here is crucial—what needed to happen between “perplexed at the empty tomb” and “returning to tell the apostles”? They had to let go of what they expected (a corpse to anoint, grief to ritualize, closure to achieve) and consent to what was actually happening (life breaking through death, reality reordered, everything they thought they knew upended).
This is the Annunciation pattern playing out at the Resurrection: divine announcement, human perplexity, the call to remember and consent, participation in what God is doing.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians illuminates what this participation looks like in daily life. He writes: Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light. Not “you were in darkness” but “you were darkness”—your entire mode of being was darkened, your participation in reality was distorted. The transformation isn’t geographical (moving from a dark place to a light place) but ontological (becoming light itself).
And how does one become light? Through the same consent Mary demonstrated. Paul continues: For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. This is not performance—trying to be good enough to earn light. This is participation—allowing divine light to produce its natural fruit in you. The good, the right, the true aren’t arbitrary rules you white-knuckle your way through. They’re what emerges when you consent to the light that’s already transforming you.
Paul’s command to try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord echoes Mary’s question: “How shall this be?” It’s active inquiry, not passive waiting. Mary didn’t understand the mechanism of the virgin birth, but she engaged with the angel, asked her question, and consented when the answer came. We are called to the same: try to learn, seek understanding, ask honestly—and then consent to what’s revealed.
The passage continues: Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. This is shadow work in Paul’s language. The “unfruitful works of darkness” aren’t just external evils—they’re the denied, hidden, rationalized parts of yourself that you’ve kept in the dark. Paul says expose them. Bring them to light. Not through self-flagellation or guilt, but through the same honest reckoning Mary demonstrated: “Here’s what I don’t understand. Here’s where I’m afraid. Here’s what seems impossible.”
Paul writes: For it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret; but when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Read this carefully. When you bring what’s hidden into the light—when you face your rage, your shame, your childhood wounds, your capacity for cruelty—it doesn’t just become visible. It becomes light. The very act of exposing transforms. This is the Resurrection pattern: death (what’s buried, hidden, denied) encountered honestly becomes life (integrated, healed, transfigured).
And then Paul quotes what may be an early Christian hymn: Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. This is the call the women heard at the tomb. This is the call Mary heard at the Annunciation. This is the call you’re hearing right now: Wake up. Stop seeking the living among the dead. Stop returning to what’s finished. Stop anointing corpses. Arise. Consent to what God is doing.
The Advent-Nativity lens reveals that awakening and resurrection aren’t violent disruptions—they’re invitations into participation. Mary wasn’t coerced into bearing Christ. She was invited, and she consented. The women at the tomb weren’t forced to believe—they were perplexed, they remembered, they chose to return and tell. You aren’t being dragged into transformation against your will. You’re being invited to consent to what’s already happening.
Paul’s exhortation to look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil takes on new urgency in this light. The “days are evil” not because God has abandoned creation but because we keep sleepwalking. We keep seeking life in places of death—dead relationships, dead patterns, dead ways of thinking about ourselves. We keep trying to anoint corpses instead of encountering the living Christ who’s already present.
Making the most of the time means waking up to what’s actually happening. It means the vigilance (nepsis) the Philokalia describes—not anxious monitoring but awakened attention. St. Hesychios writes: “Spiritual vigilance is a continual fixing and halting of thought at the entrance to the heart.” This is what Mary did at the Annunciation: she fixed her attention on what the angel was saying, she halted the rush to dismiss or rationalize, she stayed present to the impossible announcement. This is what the women did at the tomb: they let go of their expectations (spices for anointing) and attended to what was actually being revealed (the empty tomb, the angelic message, the call to remember).
Paul continues: Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart. This is the fruit of consent—not grim duty but joy. Not forced obedience but spontaneous song. When you consent to transformation the way Mary consented to the Incarnation, when you stop seeking life among the dead and turn toward what’s actually alive, the natural result is gratitude, music, melody in your heart.
The apostles’ response in Luke 24 is instructive: These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. Even Peter, who runs to the tomb and sees the linen cloths by themselves, goes home wondering at what had happened. The Resurrection doesn’t immediately obliterate doubt or confusion. The women were perplexed. The apostles thought it was nonsense. Peter wondered. But the invitation stands: consent to what’s happening even when you don’t fully understand.
The cosmic dimension here is vast: the Incarnation and Resurrection aren’t just personal salvation events—they’re the universe’s transformation. When Mary consents to bearing Christ, she participates in matter itself being united to divine life. Her womb becomes the place where heaven and earth meet, where the infinite God takes finite flesh. When Christ rises from the dead, He doesn’t just revive a corpse—He destroys death itself, opens the way for all creation to be transfigured. Your personal transformation (facing your shadow, descending to your heart, consenting to divine presence) participates in this cosmic pattern. You’re not just fixing yourself—you’re joining what the universe is already doing.
What this demands of you right now is Mary’s honest question and her radical consent. Where are you seeking life among the dead? What corpses are you trying to anoint? What finished things are you returning to, hoping they’ll give you what you need? Name them. Look at them honestly. Feel the perplexity—the disorientation when what you expected (closure, control, understanding) isn’t what you find.
And then hear the angelic question: Why do you seek the living among the dead? Remember. Turn your attention toward what’s actually alive—the place in your heart where Christ dwells, the relationships that give life, the beauty that calls you toward transfiguration, the ordinary moments charged with divine presence. This isn’t bypassing grief or denying pain. The women came to the tomb with spices. They honored what needed to be honored. But they didn’t stay there. When the Resurrection was announced, they consented to something greater.
Paul’s command to be filled with the Spirit and make melody in your heart is not wishful thinking—it’s description of what happens when you stop sleepwalking. When you expose what’s hidden to the light. When you consent to transformation. When you walk as a child of light, participating in all that is good and right and true. The fruit of light emerges naturally, not through performance but through participation.
The Annunciation pattern is the shape of all spiritual life: divine announcement (you are called to theosis), human perplexity (how can this be?), the call to remember (Christ has destroyed death, you are being transfigured), and consent (let it be to me according to Your word). Every morning is early dawn at the tomb. Every moment is the angel’s question: Why do you seek the living among the dead? And every breath is the opportunity to say with Mary: Let it be. I consent. Show me Your loving kindness here in this perplexity, this confusion, this impossible invitation.
The women returned from the tomb and told the eleven. They didn’t have certainty—they had encounter and consent. They participated in announcing what they’d witnessed, even though it seemed like an idle tale to those who heard. This is your calling: not to achieve perfect understanding before you move, but to consent to what’s happening and participate in it. To awaken from sleepwalking. To walk as a child of light. To make melody in your heart. To join the cosmic transformation that began at the Annunciation, was accomplished at the Resurrection, and continues in every moment you say yes to divine presence.
Keywords (ordered by relevance): annunciation, resurrection, consent, awakening, nepsis, Mary, vigilance, sleepwalking, shadow-integration, participation
The Greater Horizon 