I look out the windows of my small, country church at the rising sun on Easter morning. As the delicious smells waft up the stairs from where the men are cooking our annual Resurrection Sunday breakfast in the kitchen below, I notice how the dawning light outside is barely kissing the tops of the nearby mountains and painting the sky a golden glow. Clouds that let down a dusting of snow overnight now turn pale pink as the world wakes up to the start of a new day, a new week.
Voices ring out as we welcome this special day with hope and hymn, the pastor then beginning his message for this our first of two services. He speaks of the journey of Peter's unbelief... of his quickness to claim and equal quickness to deny, of his tendency to cast himself as a failure when the Savior had nothing but acceptance for him, flaws and all. Of how fear kept him from living into his divine assignment and comparison got in the way of calling. And I can't help but think of something a wise rabbi recently put it in an interview I was watching about Holy Week...
He said that the Hebrew word for tomb is also the same root word for womb. He explained that people of Jewish tradition see both things as entrance points: one is a gateway into this life while the other is a gateway into the next life and that Jesus resurrection shifts the entire imagery on its head for this very reason: when we think of a womb, we picture new life but when we think of a tomb, we think of a place where things go to die. And not just the actual final resting place of a loved one but also the resting place of our deepest unfulfilled dreams, relationships, desires, hopes, identities, beliefs, and memories. Graves house the lost things we mourn and must let go of. It reminds of endings that seem to have no chance of being reborn. They are gone forever.
As the followers of the Savior watched His body being carried off to the garden tomb, they believed that all they'd been told about the Messiah-King was now proven to be a false hope. They had resigned themselves to that reality. There certainly wasn't anything left to give them reason to believe otherwise... even though Jesus had told them that He was the "resurrection and the life" and that He would rise on the third day just like they'd watched Lazarus be raised earlier. Somehow, it didn't compute. They didn't want to believe it was over, but it sure looked that way. Peter chose to go back to his old life and fish. All the disciples had been in hiding for fear that the same people who took out Jesus would come for them also.
But the rabbi continued by sharing that everything about life with the Master is about reversal. Jesus's rising on that third day displayed not only His power over death physically but also that the tomb now becomes a womb for rebirth. Where we think things go to die and there is no hope, He sees opportunity and uses the grave of our deepest pain and hardest goodbyes to create a fresh beginning we never would see coming. Just when we think it's the most over is precisely when God is most at work, setting up a comeback that He knows will blow our mind and glorify Him. As the rabbi went on to say, the empty tomb signifies that our fears are as empty as that grave. And where we have written off all possibility of renewal or second chances, God sees a beautiful story in the making. Just when we think it's all over, Heaven is about to turn what we know on its head and redeem the loss for good.
I find myself convicted of how many tomb moments I've failed to imagine as "womb moments" where God can take the hardest things in my life and turn them into something beautiful and new. How many times I've written off the story and thought I knew the ending because... well, it looked so obvious from my perspective. And yet, the promise of redemption isn't over. While I stand and grieve like the women who came to the resting place of the Savior, God is already putting a great reversal into play. Often, I've been reminded that usually the time when I'm most likely to quit on God's plan is the exact turning point when the story is about to get really good and I've simply lost faith in the ultimate plan.
As Spring comes into view and the snow starts to melt, the trees begin to bud, the bird-song is ever louder in the woods at my home, and the temperatures rise daily, I circle back to the truth that's always been there: the spaces where I least expect to find God and the places that I assume are the least likely to be restored are exactly where He is most active, albeit often with a hidden hand instead of an obvious one. Right in the moment of my deepest doubt and fear, just as with the disciples after Jesus's death, Christ steps in and says, "Peace." He asks me to come close and examine His love-wounds that demonstrate the depths of His care for me, and He proves to me once more that my past, my false beliefs, my old self, my broken identities, my incorrect conclusions are no match for Him. And that same power that raised Him from the dead is now my living reality each and every day. I don't have to keep going back to what He called me out of already because the divine mission - the heavenly assignment - is still on.
The truth is, no matter what it looks like, His kingdom has come. His will is already being done, just as it has from the beginning. Before the foundations of the world were ever laid and the sin that has so wrecked our lives ever came into play, God's cure was already planned and in effect. God's story-writing hasn't changed. He is in the business of reversing every curse and fulfilling every promise, being completely true to His plan and His word every step of the way. Therefore, we can live with hope and expectation. We too can rise because the risen Lord comes to us, takes us by the hand, and bids us step into a new reality that only He can provide.
Sun-rays pierce through the morning chill and I smile. Oh, how I smile. Because this heart of mine is evidence that the great reversal is still very much active and well. All the cold places are warmed in its thaw, and the deaths to self, dreams, and plans that I've let go of along the way are swallowed up in His victory as He takes them in His wounded hands and assures me that He will give something else better in exchange. As I surrender and let Him be Lord, everything changes. No matter how dark the path, I choose to believe there is a Savior who lights my way. Fear can have its way no more because my life belongs to the One who stepped out of that tomb and declared that a new day has come.
I hear the ice-thaw dripping in the gutters, see the daylight hours lengthen and the coming promise of a new season slowly make its way to my corner of the world. And I welcome it - this transition place of restoration where God is creating something new out of the remnants and I am about to see the masterpiece He has had in mind all along.
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