Tomb Visitors

John 20 As Mary went to the disciples with the message that Christ had risen, only two left the “safety” of the upper room to see if what she said could be true. What motivated them to go? The two that ran were Peter and John, and as it would be, Peter again shows us his character of wanting to be first and wanting answers to his questions. How about you or I? Do we step ahead of others to find the answers?

Today, as I was reading the news, another article came up about the injured soccer player. She is a devout atheist and again railed at God. How tragic and how unlike our disciples. She refuses the gift of salvation, but Peter and John seek answers. Truly, 2 Cor 4:4 is very true: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ.”

Peter and John found part of their answer but left before Jesus could reveal Himself. However, Mary stood by and found it in the risen Christ. Don’t you wonder if the disciples had waited there instead of returning to the upper room, they too might have encountered the “gardener,” the True Gardener, Jesus risen from the dead?

If only that soccer player would wait to see and hear the Gardener’s voice, she too could say as John: I believed. How about you?

A Garden Tomb

I can only imagine

John 18-21 Sin began in a garden, and it was in a garden that sin lost its hold. It was there that Mary met Rabbi Jesus, and perhaps these words of this hymn resonated in her heart: “I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses, and He walks with me, and He talks with me, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”

It was as if the Apostle John was thinking of those words as he wrote about the Garden Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus, along with his friend Nicodemus. It was there that they laid our precious Jesus in his deadness, to be incarcerated there forever. Yet. the Word incarnate would not be beholden to that incarceration, for, on the third day, He rose to walk and talk again and to free us from our sins.

“I can only imagine” what it will be like when I meet Him face to face. Will I be like Mary, who ran and told, but they still did not believe? Will I be like Mary, who tarried there in the Garden, saw Rabbi face to face, and heard Him speak?

What will it be like?

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