When I was a student, I worked security at an establishment in Lubbock, Texas. On the grounds, at the end of this narrow road through some brush there was this retreat facility. It was a place where those with physical challenges could come and spend a week during the summer. The time of year that I was working there, this facility wasn’t used a lot; but I still had to go back and check it each night I worked.
I would drive back, get out of the vehicle and walk around the grounds. This part of the job was pretty mindless and easy. It was kinda peaceful some nights with a gentle breeze blowing under a starlit sky. I remember one night under a beautiful full moon, I was relaxing as I drove back and started walking around the building. . .until I found what wasn’t supposed to be. A door was open. This door was not supposed to be open, and it was a little unnerving.
I suppose a little less unnerving than visiting a cemetery and finding an opening. Imagine as you drive up to put some flowers by the headstone and you notice that there is hole in the ground where the body was placed. Or maybe the door was open inside the columbarium where the ashes were placed of the loved one you were leaving flowers for. Neither of these situations would bring me much peace.
It is not supposed to be this way. Who would have gone through the trouble to dig a hole in the ground or worked to get the door open where the ashes were placed? And the bigger question that would go through the mind is: Why? Why would anyone do this? This is not how things are supposed to go.
These thoughts went through those who visited the tomb nearly 2,000 years ago. Where have they taken the body? Why would someone do this? This is not how things are supposed to go. And if you take it back a step farther, He was supposed to be alive, not crucified!
But this was how it was supposed to go. The tomb was supposed to be empty. The Messiah was supposed to die. Though it wasn’t called this until centuries later, Easter was supposed to change everything. Our sins were not pushed off as with a forbearance that came though animal sacrifices. They were permanently wiped away through the blood of the Messiah. The worship of God was not centered on an individual temple, but through individuals who had become a temple of God. Death was no longer a bondage, but freedom, just as it was supposed to be.
And that night in Texas when I found the door open? Pretty uneventful. Someone must have been out there during the day and just forgot to close it. Nothing changed that night. Very unlike the morning the stone was rolled away from the entrance to the tomb and changed everything!
Grateful for the opening,
Randy
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