The Prisoners Who Couldn't Stand Up

On January 30, 1945, 121 U.S. Army Rangers crawled through the grass toward the Cabanatuan prison camp in the Philippines. Inside the wire, over five hundred American and Allied prisoners had spent three years wasting away under Japanese captivity. Many had watched friends die of disease, starvation, and execution. They had stopped expecting rescue. Some had stopped expecting tomorrow.

When the Rangers stormed through the gates and shouted that the prisoners were free, something strange happened. Many men did not move. Ranger Captain Robert Prince later described how soldiers had to physically lift prisoners off the ground. Some wept without sound. Others stared blankly, as though the word "free" had become a foreign language. A few actually resisted, convinced it was a trick. They had lived so long under the shadow of death that liberation felt more terrifying than captivity.

This is the scene at the empty tomb. The women came carrying burial spices, prepared to serve a dead man. Instead, they found the stone rolled away and a messenger declaring the most impossible sentence in human history: "He is risen." Mark tells us they fled, trembling and astonished, and said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Their silence was not disbelief. It was the stammering overwhelm of people who came prepared for a corpse and collided with the living God. Sometimes the goodness is so vast it takes our breath before it gives it back.