•Sunday, April 08, 2012
{part 2 of Following the Followers back from Calvary}
Morning comes as it always does. Rising up out of bed, shaking off
the darkness of slumber, eyes blinking to a new light...it all mirrors what the
day is all about. Rising. Awakening.
Like so many other Christ-followers around the world, I finger
together a "Sunday best" to wear to the meeting with His people. It
is a gathering together of those who remember; those who are decked out in
robes of righteousness. It is the putting on of grace, the freshening up of
hope. And I think back... to the one place where I wish I could have stood a
few thousand years ago today.
Those women, fingers gripping the spices and ointments, make their
way in the dawn's early light to retrace their steps to the tomb. They
returned, burdened by love, ready to anoint the cold, dead body of their
Lord... perhaps with tears, undoubtedly with heavy hearts.
Yet, what could have prepared them to encounter glory?
Those who stood at the foot of the cross felt the tremors of the
earth's very foundations when Jesus yielded up His spirit. A second earthquake
at the base of an empty tomb ushered in a glorious truth...and with it,
a bowing down of hearts, of minds, of every living sensibility to embrace the
miracle that would change the world.
Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has
risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of
Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the
third day rise."
And they remembered..."
Oh, the inexplicable joy that must have surged through
their veins at that moment! Death had been swallowed up in victory. Justice had
been served for the sins of an entire people... did they realize that He had
done it for them? For me? Perhaps the words came flooding back to them,
this time illuminated with meaning.
It was my sins that put Him there, my deserved death that brought
about His. Yet a humbled and repentant heart comes bowing before this
Cross, and "when God looks upon the sinner, who, but an hour ago, was dead
in sins, He looks upon him with as much love as He ever looked upon His
Son."
What wondrous love is this, oh my soul?
Isn't that what we do every Lord's Day? Every time we go to meet
Him? We come with hands full of the reminders of death, hearts burdened from
the week past -- only to be amazed that He is alive. How so often the darkness
of our circumstances can cause spiritual amnesia. We forget His promises. We
forget this Gospel -- this good news to a sin-stricken heart. We forget,
even unintentionally, that He is alive. Right. Now.
That same truth that was spoken from angelic lips to the trembling
tomb visitors is the same reminder that I need today.
A shaking up. A bowing down.
Because, really. He is alive. That makes all the difference in the
world.
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