11 September: Resurrection People

Do you ever have moments or people or events in life where you feel like all hope, all future, has been buried?  Where it seems like the life has gone from that relationship or situation which was previously such a joy?  I have a situation like this in my life at the moment and I’m left struggling.  I can see no future in that area of my life.  I struggle and struggle, I look and I strain and I screw up my eyes but all I see is the black of this grave I’m in.

Then today I opened my Bible to my allotted reading.  Matthew 28.  The resurrection of Christ.  Here’s what I read –

“Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb.  Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it.  His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow.  The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.  Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying.  And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”

- Matthew 28 v 1 - 7

Now here is a group of women who know how I feel!  Oh the depths of their sense of loss and confusion when they saw their Lord buried in a borrowed grave.  How dark everything must have seemed.  I imagine all future dreams, all hope and all joy would have been gone from their lives and the lives of those who had given everything to spend three years following Jesus and learning at his feet.  For all creation, how dark those days of Christ’s absence. 

But then the stone was rolled aside.  There was light where there was darkness and hope where there had been despair and an unimaginable eternal future on offer.  For we are the people of the resurrection.  Whatever happens in life we can be sure that there will be a future day.  Whatever our pain we are guaranteed a future joy.  We are the people of the resurrection, the massive, universe changing one but also the small ones.  As I read recently, “as Christians we have the power of Jesus’ resurrection to roll stones of hopelessness out of people’s lives and show them a life full of hope and love!”

I look for that life today.  I look for it in the only place I’ll ever find it.  The God-man Jesus of the resurrection.