Conversation Point

Easter Morning

The Passover travelers to Jerusalem were starting to pack up to go home. The crowds from the last week had already thinned significantly, enough to make the tragic events of the last few days seem distant. Sunday morning had dawned as usual. More people and animals on the streets as those leaving town got an early start, but not like last Sunday. Was it only a week since Jesus had entered Jerusalem, greeted by people praising his name as the next King of Israel? It was only a week, but also a lifetime ago. Jesus was dead, his body still waiting for a proper preparation before final burial. The disciples were still in hiding and Jesus' many followers had carried their fear and grief to the privacy of their homes.

Although Jesus' preaching, teaching and healing had inspired hope and new faith in so many, he would now become a part of the oral tradition that held his cousin, John the Baptist, and other Jewish leaders who had served their God and died in the process. Life would go back to the way it had been before Jesus became known as a public figure. He wasn't the Messiah they had hoped for, but he had kept their hope for that Messiah to come alive for a few years. Whatever happened next, at least they had that, that and the hope that God hadn't forsaken them and would still be with them while they waited. The quiet sadness was palpable and the steady stream of people leaving Jerusalem that day seemed to carry with them what little energy and life the city had left in it to keep believing and keep going.

But, daily life is what gives us the structure and support to get up, face each day and keep going, especially when we are grieving. The women who had been a part of Jesus' life knew that better than most. It was they who would now gather at the tomb where Jesus had temporarily been laid after his death late Friday afternoon to prepare his body for permanent burial. With so little time before the beginning of the Sabbath at sundown, this had bee the only choice. Perhaps it had been a good choice for them as well. The horror of Jesus' death was overwhelming. A few days of distance might make their task a little easier. Regardless, the time had come to honor Jesus and what he had meant to them in the only way left to them.

"When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?'

When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. But he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go tell the disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you (Mark 16:1-8)."

It was a new day in a new world of possibilities. God had not forgotten them.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 10:20 AM