I love Easter, it’s my favourite time of the year. This morning, 12 April 2020, I woke up purposely at 5.30am…. I nudged Helen, my wife, and said, ‘it’s time’.
Within five minutes we were walking up the hill with the purpose of reaching the top before sunrise. At 6.15am…we arrived at our destination. We were alone in the dark, facing the expanse of the grey gloom. We waited in anticipation.
Nothing could stop it; the sun began to pierce the darkness, rays of light flashed across the sky. The darkness was now insidiously cowering away having no answer to this unfolding picture of majesty as the sun began to take its place. As we gazed at the scene of a new day dawning we read the words, “Why do you look for the living among the dead”?
It’s a good question. I have found many people, including myself, looking for life from things that only, “fill in time”. Even as believers we can very easily distracted from the source that brings, ‘life in all its fullness” (Jn 10:10). This world is a mirror image of the graveyard where Jesus lay, full of dead promises offering us everything we would want, but nothing that we actually need.
Here’s the thing, the women that headed towards the graveyard 2000 years ago were not looking for the living, they we preparing to meet with a dead Jesus. They had prepared spices for a dead man. Finding Jesus alive was not even in their thinking.
What is more startling is that Jesus was at that point already alive, gloriously resurrected, He had conquered death, destroyed the power of the Devil, won the cosmic battle over sin…and these women did not know it, they just trudged towards the graveyard with their spices, oblivious – They had prepared for the wrong thing!!
Can I encourage you on Resurrection Sunday to be ready and prepared to meet the Risen Saviour - daily. Let’s not look for life from things that ultimately bring no ‘fullness’ to us. Let’s determine not to follow the example of these dear ladies who were prepared for the wrong thing and oblivious of the fact that Jesus was Resurrection and the Life!
As Helen and I walked away from that magnificent scene on top of the hill, it was great knowing that each day the S O N desires to pierce the darkness and bring new life to us each and every day.
He is not here – he has RISEN.
Every Blessing,
Steve