And There He Was… Gone

Posted by eamonthornton on Nov 30, 2009 in Daily Bread | 0 comments

If you ever get the chance to know a Welsh person, I strongly suggest you take it. I have been blessed with a number of good Welsh friends whom I met while working in England. The Welsh have a reputation for statements that are simultaneously hilarious, contradictory, and absolutely nonsensical, such as, “That coat is my jacket, hanging up down there on the floor,” or my favorite, “I went looking for Jim, and there he was, gone.”

It is this last statement that sticks in my head when I read Luke 24:1-3. Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Mary Magdalene went to perform the rituals of the dead on their Son and Teacher who had been killed. They went to his tomb not knowing how they would get in to see him but the entrance was miraculously open and the guards were mysteriously gone. With anticipation, they entered the tomb, and there He was, gone. Of course, someone with more Biblical knowledge can tell you about the size of the boulder that had been moved from the entrance to the cave or the earthquake and the angel that had frightened the guards away (Matthew 28:2), but the most significant thing to see in these three verses is that Jesus was not there.

The last half of that sentence was weird for me to write and I hope it was a little weird for you to read. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is always there for us: a source of inspiration, strength, compassion, and so many other things that we as humans lack at times. By not being there physically, Christ was risen to take his seat at the right hand of God the Father for all of eternity, and He is there for us always as the way, the truth, and the light. It is because He fulfilled the scriptures and wasn’t there physically, still wrapped in linens that we know He is exceedingly worthy of our highest praise.