Dear Readers and Listeners
Today I would like to start with the application verse for the day, “The women went to the tomb. When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back,” Mark 16 verses 2 and 4. The women went to the tomb of Jesus, for they wanted to come and pay their respects and to anoint his body in the customary manner that they were denied, due to the unusual situation surrounding his trial, crucifixion, death and burial. They could hardly comprehend the happenings of those past few days. They wanted to come and to spend time with their Master, even if it were in the sepulchre, beholding his dead body and mourning for him. This visit to the tomb of the Lord would be a time of taking leave of their Lord. The came very early in the morning and had questioned each other on how to remove the very large stone guarding the entrance, however, the reality of the large stone did not deter them to still journey to the tomb. When they came to the place they realized that their first concern, coming into the space and place of the presence of the body of the Lord Jesus, wad already been addressed, they could enter, without hindrance. When they entered they were told, by a young man dressed in glittering white, that they need not fear. They would not find Jesus there dead, lifeless in the tomb, for Jesus, whom they were looking for, had conquered death and had gone ahead of them to Galilea.
There are times in our lives, when we, like the women of our reading, come with our earthly tributes to a place that we are convinced contain the remains of all our hopes and dreams. We want to behold the place and make peace with the situation and sit there for awhile grieving, mourning and embalming our hopes and dreams and take leave of them. However, when we come to the place where we thought that we would bury our last hope and raise a tombstone, we find Jesus waiting for us in radiant light. Our plans are completely changed and we walk away from the tomb with the sure knowledge of a new beginning, the breaking of a new day, filled with hope and joy for a purpose-filled future.
The resurrection life that Jesus promised his disciples and all his followers is a life filled with super-natural hope, a life that looks beyond the things of the earth, and sees what ought to be as if it has already become. The tomb of Jesus was the portal to new life, life that vanquished and overcame the last sting of the enemy, namely the permanent decay of the body and condemnation of the soul. Our mortal bodies are the encasement or the vessel of our spiritual body, as the Apostle Paul calls it “our tent-dwelling.” It is not an unimportant vessel, but the very material made of the ground that God will bring back to life at the last trumpet sound. It is the body that he has given us, that will one day be healed and restored and given back to us in perfection. We serve God with all that we are, our minds, our souls and hearts and the strength and weakness of our bodies. Jesus suffered in mind, body and soul the same suffering that humans suffered, however, he never relented to the temptation of sin. Jesus saw his hopes and dreams for the temple leadership to believe that he is truly the Son of God crushed, he experienced how he had to drink the cup that he asked his Father to take from him. Through all this suffering and unrealized hopes and dreams, the greatest Hopes and Dreams of all of Humanity and God were realized, reconciliation and the Gift of Redemption through Christ.
When we come to the end of our perfect dreams and hopes and bury these by covering them up, hiding them away, so that we would not be reminded of them, we find a voice telling us that we need not fear. When we come and pour our tears over the losses we have suffered, the people we have had to take leave of, the lives we knew, then suddenly we are confronted by a radiant light that calls us not to be afraid, and shows us that the tomb is opened! Instead of death and mourning we find life and joy! We can expect the unexpected. Life, resurrection life is already given here and now, for despite having to dwell in our tent-dwelling, we have received the renewal of our minds and hearts. We are strengthened by the truth of life on earth, it leads to life in heaven, where there will be no sorrow and no tears.
The psalmists calls out in his praise song, as he thinks on the new Jerusalem and the work of the Coming Messiah, in Psalm One Hundred and Forty Seven, verse 3, “He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds,” (NRSVB). Instead of binding up the dead body of their Lord and Master, shedding their tears and mourning with broken hearts the women experienced their wounds being healed and their broken-hearts restored to joy, as they slowly start to understand that Christ has risen, the Tomb could not contain Him, he is walking ahead of them as they journey to their home.
Father, today we come and lay down our broken-hearts and our dashed hopes and look at the open tomb and rejoice! The Stone has been rolled away for us and we are free to live the resurrection life, with you, Amen.