Do you know the darkness of the tomb? Have secrets kept you captive? Has someone slammed you into a cruel cell with their hateful words or abusive actions? Or do you feel as though your body has betrayed and captured you with illness? Do you know the door grating shut, the darkness as real as 3 p.m. on Good Friday?
I do. I think you do, too.
Do you also know the startling movement from death to life? Jesus not only stands at the door of the empty tomb breathing deeply of the pre-dawn air, but he also reaches back into the darkness of death and decay to draw us out into new life with him.
This message is adapted from “Emptying the Tomb” written by Susan Gamelin in the April 2000 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.