Monday April 20 - In the empty wonder of the tomb

DAILY BYTE

Last week we heard about the Gospel of Mark’s account of the resurrection of the Messiah. But, all four of the gospels contain descriptions of Jesus’ resurrection. So, not only do we have a miraculously risen Lord, but also we have four different ways of peering into the tomb with wonder – four slightly different ways of drawing us all into the story. Eugene Peterson says that the different gospels approach the resurrection “from different directions…but one element is common to them all: they all convey a sense of wonder, astonishment, surprise.”

The Gospel of John’s version particularly draws us in to this astonishment through the language of the story, and we will be exploring John’s account this week. In the Greek this part of the story is written mostly in the present tense, so as Mary Magdalene approaches the empty tomb, we approach the tomb with her:

It was a February morning in Jerusalem when I stepped through the entrance of the garden tomb into the cave. Other tourists were around, but it still felt cold to me. I looked at the stone bed, and there was an emptiness and a hardness to it. I tried to want to be in there – and I tried to imagine Jesus, as he would have been laid. But, no matter how hard I tried, it felt void of life in that tomb, and I could relate to Mary Magdalene - I was more than happy to make a quick exit.

There was a strange wonder to that place – one that we don’t really know what to do with. It reminds me of the same feeling I get when I visit the gravesides of people I have loved – a strange feeling of emptiness is there, even though you know that something completely life-altering has occurred, and the person who is gone really is there at the same time.

We respond to this mystery in many ways, don’t we? Sometimes we respond by rushing out of the hollow, empty tomb – trying to get away from the strange reality and the hollowness of death, no matter how wondrous it may be.

When Mary sees that Jesus is not in the tomb, she runs! And we get an immediate play by play, going through the actions with Mary and the other disciples. She sees, she runs! We see, we run!

But, when Mary sees that Jesus is not in the tomb, she doesn’t go looking in the places where he may be. Perhaps grave robbers were lurking. Perhaps, the mob would desecrate Jesus’ body and then come after Jesus’ followers, too. Perhaps, after all their denial, they would have to own up to the fact that they really were disciples.

So instead of going looking for Jesus, Mary goes back to the safety of her friends – Simon and the other disciple Jesus loved.

How often when we hear the wonder of the resurrection do we shy away because of its strangeness and the feeling of danger that arises when we realize that if Jesus is alive, life is going change? We can choose whether we want to run away to the hollow safety of a life we’ve always known or whether we want to be completely changed by what happened when Jesus disappeared from the tomb.

Do you want your life to be utterly transformed by the very fact that Christ is risen?


GUIDING SCRIPTURE
John 20: 1-2
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."