Book of Common Prayer

The gospel of the Messiah, crucified, buried and risen

15 Let me remind you, brothers and sisters, about the good news which I announced to you. You received this good news, and you’re standing firm on it, ² and you are saved through it, if you hold fast the message I announced to you—unless it was for nothing that you believed!

³ What I handed on to you at the beginning, you see, was what I received, namely this: “The Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the Bible; ⁴ he was buried; he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Bible; ⁵ he was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve; ⁶ then he was seen by over five hundred brothers and sisters at once, most of whom are still with us, though some fell asleep; ⁷ then he was seen by James, then by all the apostles; ⁸ and, last of all, as to one ripped from the womb, he appeared even to me.”

⁹ I’m the least of the apostles, you see. In fact, I don’t really deserve to be called “apostle” at all, because I persecuted God’s church! ¹⁰ But I am what I am because of God’s grace, and his grace to me wasn’t wasted. On the contrary. I worked harder than all of them—though it wasn’t me, but God’s grace which was with me. ¹¹ So whether it was me or them, that was the way we announced it, and that was the way you believed.

The resurrection

16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so that they could come and anoint Jesus. ² Then, very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb, just at sunrise. ³ They were saying to one another, “There’s that stone at the door of the tomb—who’s going to roll it away for us?”

⁴ Then, when they looked up, they saw that it had been rolled away. (It was extremely large.)

⁵ So they went into the tomb, and there they saw a young man sitting on the right-hand side. He was wearing white. They were totally astonished.

⁶ “Don’t be astonished,” he said to them. “You’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He isn’t here! Look—this is the place where they laid him.

⁷ “But go and tell his disciples—including Peter—that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You’ll see him there, just like he told you.”

⁸ They went out, and fled from the tomb. Trembling and panic had seized them. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Two extra endings

[[They gave a brief account to the people around Peter of what they had been told. After this, Jesus himself sent out from East to West, through their work, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.]]