The resurrection of Jesus is the central mystery of the Christian faith. Christians celebrate the resurrection implicitly every Sunday by worshiping on the first day of the week, and they celebrate the resurrection explicitly on Easter Sunday. If you were to ask people to describe the exact events that transpired on that first Easter, you would get a variety of different accounts, perhaps taken from one specific gospel, but more likely based on some combination of the gospel accounts. The problem of specifying "the original story" is that even in the first century, in the earliest surviving versions of the story, not just details but entire narratives vary. Today's readings from the gospels of John and Mark illustrate the situation perfectly. John's account focuses on one woman, Mary Magdalene, who visits Jesus' tomb alone, finds it empty, and races to tell the disciples. Peter and another disciple run to the tomb, confirm her story, and leave. Mary remains behind, weeping, and sees two angels sitting in the tomb, who ask her why she is weeping. "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him," she responds. She then turns and sees Jesus but doesn't recognize him until he says her name. At that point she throws her arms around him and presumably continues to weep, this time for joy. Jesus himself gives her the command to return to the disciples to tell them what she has seen and heard, which she does immediately. The resurrection story in Mark is quite different. In Mark, Mary Magdalene is accompanied by two other women, and they are visiting the tomb with the intent of anointing Jesus' body with oil and spices. All three enter the tomb and see a young man in a white robe sitting there. He tells them that Jesus has been raised from the dead and orders them to tell Peter and the other disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. The women depart in fear and astonishment, but they don't tell anyone what they've seen, because they're afraid. What are we to make of these two disparate accounts? First, it does no good to try to reconcile these two stories with one another, or with the accounts in the other two canonical gospels. They are simply different stories, sharing certain common elements (the empty tomb, which women were the first to observe) but differing greatly in detail. This disparity bothers some people, but I think it's a reflection of resurrection reality. My experience of the resurrection differs from that of other people I know. Not only are no two experiences exactly alike, they are often startlingly different. That's as it should be, because we are all unique individuals, and our encounters with the divine vary according to our personalities, earlier experiences, theological expectations, and immediate circumstances. Second, in each of these two accounts the principal characters, either Mary Magdalene or the three women, are confronted with a choice: either tell others what they know about the wonderful and confusing events they've experienced, or be overcome by fear of the unknown. In John, Mary readily tells two disciples about the empty tomb even before her encounter with either the angels or Jesus, and after conversing with both the angels and Jesus she immediately relays the information to all the disciples. In Mark, the women see the empty tomb and hear the angel's instructions, but they flee in the face of the unknown, confused and terrified. These two accounts confront modern Christians with the same two issues. Will we accept that other people may have had experiences that they identify as encounters with the divine that are quite different from our own yet still accept them as authentic people of faith? And what will we do with the understanding that we have of the resurrection, opaque and confusing as it may seem to us: will we keep it to ourselves because we're unsure how to express it, or will we live our lives in the light of the mystery of the resurrection, sharing the good news of God's love through word and action?