Resurrection Run

For the week after Easter, some deeper dives into the Resurrection.

When (the women) 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 his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. ~ Mark 16:4-8

 No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach; the same restlessness; the yawning. ~ CS Lewis
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. ~ Joseph Campbell

The cave represented all the fears realized by Jesus' followers.

 It meant that he was really dead.

 It meant that it was all over. Hopes and dreams had come crashing to an end.

 For the women coming to Jesus tomb on that third day, there had to be a deep psychological event that they were experiencing. Depression, anxiety, maybe even some PTSD to see the leader they loved killed so brutally.

 And grief. Definitely grief. Soul crushing grief.

 They'd likely been living in fear for so long that it had to be hard to think of another way of being: fearful that what Jesus had said would be true: that he would be killed.

 And he was right.

 Entering the cave with trepidation and grief.

 And then told the news that he was not there!

 Raised?

 It was fantastical! How could it be? How much easier to trust not what they had heard but instead what they thought they knew: that the end had come?

 Because what did it mean if what this man in white said was true?

 They ran away, but that wasn't the end of the story.

 In the end, the truth would catch up with them.

 The truth would catch up with us all. And make us free.
Prayer: God of life and truth, help me to have no fear when faced with what the world might throw at me. Help me to trust in you, even when doing some seem scary. Amen.




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