Just As He Said

Jesus’ disciples should have known what was coming that morning, they really should have.  Jesus told them he would be raised to life after three days, so why wasn’t everyone hanging around the tomb on that Easter morning, excited, expectant?  Why were his followers somewhere else, cowering, despairing, disappointed, afraid?  Maybe for the same reason I hide, or cower, despair and fear…  Because I don’t believe what Jesus has said.  If I did, wouldn’t I be near that tomb, standing in that hard place?  That difficult place that whispers, “This thing is over with, it’s sealed, dead.”

Thankfully, the resurrection of Jesus never depended on his follower’s faith in his words.  Thankfully there was no belief meter deciding if everything came true, deciding if he would come through for doubters and skeptics and flagging friends and misguided enemies…  Jesus said he would rise and he did.  He did it in spite of the frowns, suspicions, and sealed tomb.  With no help from a cheering section or venture capitalist, he rose.  Just as he said.

And then, it gets better.  He walks through the doors people were too scared to open and says, not “What’s wrong with you, why didn’t you believe me?”  Not, “Well, you don’t get much now after the way you behaved.”  No.  He walks through doors people were too scared to open, passes right through walls they’ve been hiding behind, and says, “Peace be with you!”  Halleluiah, what a Savior!

Makes me want to run to the tomb, doesn’t it you?  Makes me want to run to that hard and sad and carefully guarded, sealed, dead thing and stand there.  Stand there all alone if I have to, waiting, for the third day.  Waiting, because I’ve learned that Jesus will do… just as he said.    

                       “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.”  Matthew 28:6 NIV