April 01, 2009
Paradox
When I’ve seen photos of garden tombs that are purported to be (or similar to) where Jesus was buried, my eyes are always drawn to the door jams. About two-thirds of the way up both sides of the entrance, the stone is darkened where visitors have placed their hands as they’ve leaned forward to peer into the empty tomb. It’s interesting that we go to a cemetery because we know our loved ones are there…and yet we go to the garden tomb because we know Jesus isn’t there.
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Gail;
-----We live in a very limited box, and the way we think is largely constructed like it - limited. Several thousand years of history has been recorded, and there is at least some yet to come. Yet no one living has experienced more than 120 years of it, and few have experienced close to that much. The universe extends outward in distances so great it must be measured in terms of how far light can travel in a year, and the edges of just the visible universe are said to be billions of those units away. Yet, less than a couple dozen men have ventured as far as light can travel in about two seconds, the rest of us have only traveled around on a globe which light can circle in less than half a second. Of all God has made this universe to be, man has experienced less than a nick of its surface.
-----Outside this limited box is another existence we have only heard about. It is far more vast than our physical universe, and it is eternally permanent. Our minds are so confined to this little box of time and place that we hardly grasp how fully the grave is the doorway to it. We go to the grave’s of our fallen with a certain mourning in our hearts that tends to obscure the fullness of the freedom into which they have gone. For we mostly see their graves as graves, since their bodies are still there.
-----But when we go to Jesus’ grave, it isn’t entirely His grave we feel. It is sort of our grave, too. For He took part of us there when He went and defeated it so it would not defeat us. And unlike the graves of our loved ones, there is more than a desire in us to participate in His grave, for we die with Him daily to the sin in us. Moreover, His grave looks much more like a door, since it alone is empty.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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