The Miracle of the Moment

I love the imagery of the resurrection. Sunday school teachers around the world are breaking out their flannel boards and felt characters in preparation for Super Sunday.

The scene might look something like this. High atop a barren hill sits an empty tomb. A perfectly round rock has been rolled away from its’ perfectly symmetrical opening. Beams of blinding light burst forth from the blackness. Approaching the tomb, you notice Clorox-clean burial clothes neatly folded, laying in the exact location of where Jesus body was laid. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining.

All is well in Resurrectionland. It certainly puts a storybook ending on a gruesome chapter that transpired only days before.

What if you found out that the burial place of Christ was not actually sitting atop a hill all by itself? Perhaps the burial plot purchased by Joseph of Arimathea was one of many holes hewned into the rocky side of a mountain, full of other dead people.

What if there was no bright Heavenly light blinding you as you walked up to take a final peak inside the tomb? But instead of rays of light, you were greeted by darkness.

What if the perfectly crafted rolling rock wasn’t perfect at all, but instead was just a big, clunky boulder that Joseph found laying near the grave?

What if the burial clothes that once draped the lifeless body of our Savior weren’t quite as pristine as the pictures depict? They probably more resembled the dried bloodstains and water that rushed from the side our Savior. Perhaps the clothes actually smelled like something that had enveloped a lifeless body for three days.

What if in Christ’s excitement to his ascent to glory, he failed to properly make his bed and neatly fold his clothes?

If the scene of the resurrection was a little less felt-boardish and a little more realistic, would it be good enough?

Would it be good enough that Jesus left his Father’s side in Heaven to hang out with a bunch of sinners like you and me? Would you be satisfied knowing that he lived thirty-three fully human years without sinning? I find it hard to live thirty-three fully human MINUTES without sinning.

During his time here on our tiny blue planet, he healed your blindness, raised your daughter from the dead and gave you a purpose to live...and die for the first time in your life. His reward? A brutal Roman crucifixion. On Friday, Jesus was sentenced to thirty-nine lashes with a whip equipped with bone, glass and metal at the end of each strand of leather. Why not forty? Because under Roman law, forty lashes would be considered a death sentence. There were eight inch spikes driven through both of his wrists and feet into a cross made out of wood, which ultimately led to his suffocation.

As sad as Friday was, Sunday was coming. How good is it knowing that his death was not final, but temporary? It doesn't really matter what actually happened that Easter morning. What matters is that it happened at all. The plot thickens now that there is no one in Joseph's grave.

He did it for only one reason. You. If you were the only person on Earth, His plans would not have changed.

The miracle of this event is not in the scene, but in the act itself. I stand amazed at the act.