In
the hours before dawn, the women rose, gathered their spices and went to anoint
Jesus’body.
He was their friend, their teacher, and in one case, their son. The one person
who knew their hearts completely and loved them still. The person who had given
them hope that God had seen the misery of His people and was going to help
them. The person who had healed sickness and cast out demons and even raised
the dead. But now he was the one who was dead.
They
had watched him take every agonizing step up Golgotha. They had seen the pain
on his face and seen those long nails sticking out of his wrists. They had
stared, unable to tear their eyes away but wishing they could. They had wept
and wondered why God would allow this injustice and why the best man they had
ever known would have to suffer so, and why they would have to lose him.
But by
Sunday morning, their tears were spent. They must have found some way to numb
the sorrow, to block it up in the bottoms of their hearts and roll a stone over
the entrance. They busied themselves with preparing to anoint the body and with
worrying about the stone at the entrance to the tomb, because the alternative
was just too painful.
We,
too, feel pain that is the same in kind if not in degree. We lose those we
love. We watch friends get hurt. We see the injustice of the world and mourn
for victims of senseless violence. We feel hope, only to have it crushed. Some
of us wonder if there is anything left to live for.
But
power is at work in the hour before Easter dawn. Even as the women trudge along
the dark, stony path to the tomb, angels descend, and the stone is rolled away.
Air fills the lungs collapsed by crucifixion, the hands pierced by nails move,
His eyes open, and the soul of the man who spoke and laughed and cried and
loved returns to His body. He is risen.
And
those three words breathe life into souls that were nearly destroyed by sorrow.
The injustice is righted, the loss is restored, the pain is healed. Hope is not
only rekindled, but it blazes forth as brightly as the sun that now rises above
the eastern horizon. He is alive, not only in our hearts but in reality. And
because He lives, we also will live.
It’s
now the day after Easter. The songs are sung, the decorations are coming down,
and the chocolate is, or soon will be, consumed. It’s Monday, and people are
going back into the drudgery of work. Life presses in with its various
problems: sick children, quarrels with loved ones, disasters on the news, and
pain hidden in our hearts.
But the
Resurrection is not just a story. It is a historical event in which the raw,
physical reality of death was reversed. Jesus had – and still has – a body just
like yours but now transformed. He experienced all the struggles of your life and more. But He has
overcome all that evil, and someday, He will return to destroy evil forever.
Friends,
Christ is risen today and every other day. Remember that next time you feel the
darkness pressing in on you. Jesus is alive.
