Was It a Morning Like This?

Oh, Mary of Magdala - was it a morning like this, when you went to the tomb - carrying the burial spices, the cleansing cloths and the new, clean shroud in which you would wrap your beloved Rabbi as you said goodbye for the last time? Did those necessary things feel like weight in your hands? Did you hurry to the tomb that morning, just to get it over with? Or, as the old song says, did you walk "with painful step, and slow?" Did you weep as you went on the way, or was your heart a stone like the one in front of his tomb?

Did you and the others converse as you walked? Did you make a plan? Yes, Joseph and Nicodemus did the best they could in such a hurry, but it was not good enough - even their seventy-five pounds (seventy-five pounds!) of spices was not good enough. Not for Jesus.  Were you not compelled to clean the blood and caked dirt from the pierced feet of the Man who walked everywhere offering hope and forgiveness? Didn't you have to wash those broken, bleeding hands that healed the leper, the blind, the deaf and the demon possessed? You must have wanted to wash the hands that blessed children and broke bread. Did you want to gently wash the bloody, bruised but beautiful face of your beloved Rabbi one last time? 

Did the sun slant through the mist like it did here today, or did it come with sudden, unbearable heat? (How dare the sun keep shining when the Light of the world had been extinguished!) Those dark hours on Friday must have been what your heart felt. Dark. Light-less. Hope-less.

And what did you think Mary, as you approached the tomb and saw the stone rolled away? Were you grateful? Afraid? Hopeful...that somehow, some way...

When you saw the angel, were you confused? Terrified? He told you, "Do not be afraid!" You must have been.

In that moment, did the flutterings of hope stir in your heart, or did hope come crashing in like a tidal wave?

Did you drop your burial spices in your haste to run and tell the news? The angel said it, but could it be true?

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here! He has risen!" 

Don't skip Saturday

Why do we skip over Saturday?

The disciples didn't. The women didn't.

Hopeless. Grief-stricken. Crushed by disappointment. Confused. Lost. Angry. Afraid. Hopeful?

Those religious leaders didn't.

Smug. Victorious. Proud. Afraid?

Yes, we skip past Saturday as if nothing happened. We hunt eggs. We have parties. We smile and say, "Sunday's coming!" with joyful anticipation.

We skip past Saturday at our peril. Saturday teaches us that when we have lost all hope, we are not hopeless. It teaches us that when all our best-loved dreams are sealed in a tomb, there is something going on in there we can't see. It teaches us that when the death-blow has seemingly extinguished all light, the Light of the world is still shining. Saturday teaches us to wait. Saturday teaches us that it is human to doubt, feel hopeless, to despair; to feel lost and angry and uncertain.

But thank God, Jesus didn't skip Saturday.

Spirit regenerated. Slashing through hell. Setting captives free. Defeating death. 

Yes friends. Sunday is coming.