Journey Through Lent - Day 48

The journey has just begun. It looked like it was over, but it is only just begun. Mary Magdalene is up early. In fact, the sun hasn't quite come up. She arrives at the tomb, and she sees that it's empty. She's confused, bewildered, she runs back to tell the others. Peter and john start running to see what had happened. It's very early to be running. But there they are running to the tomb. And when they get there, they see what Mary saw an empty tomb, and some discarded burial clothes. And that's it. John isn't connecting the dots for us in today's reading. He's still giving us one bit of the story at a time. But John tells us that all these dots are finally adding up to something really important for him. He says in verse eight, that he saw and believed. He believed that Jesus was actually risen from the dead! He had no proof at this time. He just believed. He had seen enough. Jesus wasn't standing in front of him. But he had seen enough. He had experienced enough. Enough of Jesus's truthfulness, his compassion, his radical forgiveness, he had experienced all of that in abundance over these three years, and now standing in this empty tomb. He believed. This passage is important for us because on one level, we have a lot of dots in front of us, a lot of unanswered questions. And Jesus is not standing right in front of us. And yet there are those dots. We have seen his presence in our lives, we have experienced His forgiveness. We have felt his presence during times of suffering. And now John invites us on this Easter day to look into the empty tomb with him. And in light of what you have seen, he has a question for all of us. Have we seen enough? And if you haven't, maybe you can humbly pray, God helped me in my unbelief. Ask God to open your eyes to open your heart. That you might see his self giving, radically forgiving, co suffering love, even more. So that someday you can join john and say, I've seen enough. I believe. Today we look to the resurrection. To the day when God was victorious over sin, death and the grave. The day when eyes were opened, and hope was born for all of humanity. Lord, we come today to worship Lord, we want to worship you on this Easter day. We want to celebrate the joy of resurrection hope, because the tomb was empty. And we have seen enough. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.

You are loved!