A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
Kendra Intihar
Today's Scripture: “But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.’” Matthew 28:5-6
Theme: Because of the Resurrection, we can believe every situation is within God’s power to repair and restore.
WHERE WERE YOU?
“Who cuts a channel for the flooding rain
or clears the way for lightning,
to bring rain on an uninhabited land,
on a desert with no human life,
to satisfy the parched wasteland and cause the grass to sprout?” Job 38:25-27 (CSB)
God asked this and many other questions of a grieving Job, who could find no meaning in his pain. Job, who was blameless and upright (Job 1:8), had done nothing to deserve his misery, and yet there he was, in the middle of it, with a few friends who didn’t know when to keep their mouths shut. Have you been there?
If you live long enough, you will deeply grieve. Nearly everyone reading these words has experienced deep, voice-cracking grief. You’ve lost a spouse. You’ve experienced the death of a child. You’ve had a parent whose mind was captured by dementia or Alzheimer’s. You have a terminal illness. If we’re given the gift of any length of life, we will eventually come to understand that pain is just a part of our journey here on earth. No platitude can fix it. No, God didn’t need “another angel in heaven.” No, it didn’t “happen for a reason.” No, it “couldn't be worse.” No, you don’t "know how I feel." No, the Lord did not give me this pain “because He thought I could ‘handle’ it.”
If we’re not careful, we can come to believe that all the pain is our fault, but Job tells us a different story. And so does Easter.
DON’T BE AFRAID
On Sunday morning, after the death and burial of Jesus, several women went to His tomb to provide practical care for His body. The gospels don’t tell us exactly how many women were in this group – Luke says Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and “the other women” (Luke 24:1, 10); Mark tells us that Salome was among them (Mark 16:1). What we do know about these women is that they were in deep grief over the death of Jesus, and they were doing what they could do to honor Him, even in death. You know people like these women. Perhaps you yourself are like these women. When it is time to grieve, some people have the gift of grieving practically, authentically, and with the gift of their presence, just like the women at the tomb.
Among these women were those who had been healed by Jesus, those who had funded His ministry out of their wealth, and those who called Him their friend. At least five women showed up to anoint the dead body of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had all loved. Imagine pouring all your hope into this Man who had given you every reason to believe that He had come to usher in God’s earthly Kingdom, then watching Him die a cruel and gruesome death before being entombed. Not only had they lost their beloved friend; they had lost the hope of their Messiah. Certainly, they had experienced death before, but never a death of this magnitude.
They thought it was the end, but a light burst through the darkness of death that day.
SHADOWS ARE PROOF OF LIGHT
Jesus lives. Jesus, the Light of the world, could not, cannot, and will not be contained by darkness. Jesus restores. The hopelessness of His crucifixion and burial gave way to the miracle of His resurrection and paints a picture for us, even today, of the Hope we have in Him for the restoration of ALL things (Acts 3:21).
You and I walk through valleys of shadows, but shadows are proof of Light. Light is the only reason we know darkness exists. In Christ’s resurrection, Light was proven irrepressible, and God’s beautiful plan for the future restoration of all things in Christ was revealed.
Like Job, we were not here when God laid the foundations of the earth. We don’t know when He causes rain on uninhabited lands. We don’t know the moment when He said to the ocean, “This is where your proud waves halt.” (Job 38:11b, NIV).
But we do know that He is God. Like Job, we can trust Him: “Then Job answered the Lord and said: ‘I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted’” (Job 42:1-2, ESV). We do know that when we go through hell, we don’t walk out empty-handed. We do know that we are so relentlessly beloved by God that even the grave could not hold Him.
HE LIVES
For those of us who are experiencing hopelessness today for any reason, we can rest in this demystified mystery of Hope: Jesus came to introduce us to the Kingdom of God, where peace prevails, and we can finally see His good creation exactly as it is meant to be. Jesus lives. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ has shown us, unequivocally, that He will restore every lost thing to us in His time.
Make it Personal: Take a moment to imagine the women at the tomb and the shock they must have felt when they saw an angel, like lightning, sitting on top of the rolled away stone where their friend Jesus had been laid. “‘Don’t be afraid,’ the angel said to them, ‘because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said…’” (Matthew 28:5-6a, CSB). What must have happened to their sense of hopelessness and loss in that moment? If you don’t have a heartbreaking story of your own, then you know someone who does. Let the scandal of the Gospel message shock you today, just like it did the women at the tomb. Let yourself dare to hope that Jesus meant it when He said, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5b, ESV).
Pray: Jesus, even if I cannot feel it today, help me to rest in the future You have prepared for me. In You, I am whole, I am healed, I am made new. I believe Your story. I trust Your plan. Let me live like Easter morning every day that I am in this world and in the world to come. It’s in Your living Name I pray. Amen.
Read: John 1:5; Psalm 23; Joel 2:25-26
Weekly Memory Verse: “But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.’” Matthew 28:5-6, ESV