“Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on the way to the tomb and they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?’ But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.” (Mark 16:2-4)
I was early at the front door. The steps of my soul were wet with the dew of heaven. I opened the Book and turned to the resurrection story. It was Easter Sunday.
It was hard to read as I had come with a hurt that wouldn’t allow me to “hear” any of His promises and was therefore making me physically sick! A situation in the family had broken my heart. “I need to concentrate,” I told myself severely.
I read about the angels rolling away the stone. Here were the women, bravely going to the tomb where Jesus had been laid after the crucifixion. They knew there was a huge stone across the doorway. “Who shall roll away the stone?” When they got there it was rolled away!
All that worry for nothing! I thought.
Suddenly He came. I worshipped Him, thanking Him with all my heart for Easter! Even the birds joined in the praise.
“Lord, these women are so like me!” I said, showing Him the passage I was reading. (It really helps to read the Book with Him and get His insights on it. After all He was there!)
“I spend my life worrying about piles of problems up ahead that seem far too big for my small strength, Lord. Obstacles that tower over my thoughts all day long.”
“But you know, Jill, that if you trust Me to be ahead of you, and go on with your life and service for Me, that usually when you get to the dreaded problem the stone has been rolled away! Walk in faith towards the tomb of your troubles,” He advised. “Believe that if God can raise the dead, He can bring life into this situation too, whatever the circumstances.”
So we sat and talked about the incredible words in the Book about the stone being rolled away and the tomb being empty when the women came.
“What was it like when the angels rolled the stone away and let You out, Lord?” I asked. Then He was laughing and it sounded as if the whole of creation was laughing too. Great glad cries of “He is risen! He is risen!”
“The angels didn’t let me out, Jill,” He said gently. “I was long gone, bursting the shackles of death, out into the light of all that’s living. The angels didn’t open the tomb to let Me out, but to let the women in!”
Then I was part of the laughter of praise that wouldn’t quit all around me. For these moments, I had forgotten my pain, born out of a precious child close to me who was suffering greatly. My heart had been red raw and my spirit crushed when I came to the steps, and I had had a few minutes of blessed respite. Suddenly, the situation intruded into my mind again and it was like a tsunami swamping everything in and around me.
I gasped for breath and cast a desperate look at Him sitting on the steps outside the front door. Why had I never noticed a boulder at the side of the door lintel?
“It’s the Stone,” He said. “I put it there to remind you of the power of My resurrection life.”
I don’t know how long we read the Book together that Easter morning, but I know it was a turning point for me. I had to say a prayer in our church services that day and the words came easily as a response to my own time with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the deep place where nobody goes.
This is the prayer. I want to pray it with you as I prayed it for the congregation and I would like to think you will step inside my words and make it your own.
Turn my crying and my sighing
Into laughter in the rain,
Bend to bless my raw emotions
Lying prostrate in their pain.
Help me leave the graveside singing,
Trust myself to Your great might.
O dear Lord, refresh my spirit,
Pierce my darkness with Your light.
Walk into my deadness shouting,
“I’m alive, lift up your eyes,
For the tomb of all your troubles
By my life can be surprised.”
He who raised His Christ at Easter
Had the power to impart
All the Spirit’s grand dynamic
To my fainting, failing heart.
You can do it if I let You
You’re the best that life can be,
This the reason for Golgotha
For Your dying agony.
Where to find the healing medicine
That reaches deep inside?
It is in Your resurrection,
It’s the reason that You died.
On Good Friday You took all my sins
And paid for all my mess,
So it must be galling now to see
My life so passionless.
Forgive my cool indifference
To Your searing suffering,
My meager grudging service,
My small change in offerings!
O Jesus, mercy on me
When the souls for whom You died
Don’t know it broke Your Father’s heart
When You were crucified.
My flimsy faith must grieve You
My trivial life depress
The One who gave His child away
To win me ‘Ever-ness.’
In the heat of all my heartaches
Send the Spirit’s cooling balm,
In this magic melting moment
Cradle me within Your arms.
Send Your Pentecostal Spirit
Drench me with Your saving Grace,
God forgive my part in causing
All those tears on Your face.
In this hallowed Easter moment
May I find new hope in Thee,
By Your fragrant precious presence
O dear Lord, lay hold of me.
Till I get home one Easter
And I har the angels sing,
And You mend my broken image
And You heal my everything.
Then the crooked will be straightened
And the blind shall see Your Throne,
The orphans find a Father
And the homeless find a home.
The rejected have a family
And the twisted mind be sane,
Then the tortured won’t remember
All the horror and the pain.
There the poor will have a mansion,
And the rich one share his wealth,
The refugee a country
And the little child her health.
When our strong, eternal bodies
Run besides eternal streams,
Then the miracles of heaven
Will exceed our wildest dreams.
So take my numbered moments
That You’ve counted out for me,
And help me live them as You did
In light of Calvary.
And when I get home one Easter
And I see You in that hour,
May I bring my lost world with me
By Your resurrection power!
Reprinted from The Garden of Grace by Jill Briscoe. Monarch Books.
