Author: Beth
•Sunday, April 08, 2012



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.

Let's remember. 


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