Waiting
for Morning
“Now on the first day of the week, very early in the
morning, they, and certain other women
with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.” Luke 24:1
When I was about 7 years old, my parents were taking a
trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where my father would buy fur from the
trappers who lived there. We would stay in
a rustic cabin where my mother and I would play games and I would do my school
work that my teacher sent along with me. The morning we were to leave, my
parents woke me up very early and climbed into the car.
I had never been up this early before and as we were
driving east, pink rays began to appear across the sky. I had never seen this sight before and I was
so excited to watch the colors break across the dim sky. My mother explained
how this happened almost every morning.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My parents tried to get me to lay down among
the pillows and blankets in the back seat where I set in my pajamas. They knew we had a long trip in front of us,
but I could not sleep when I could watch the glorious Straits of Mackinaw where
I woke up to see a big boat with what looked like big open jaws that cars were
driving into. It was a car ferry. The
big Bridge was not yet built, but riding across the water was another exciting
adventure for me, but the excitement of a morning sunrise is what I remember
most.
I don’t think there was any excitement in the women
who were going to the tomb to anoint Jesus body. “Saturday evening, when the Sabbath
ended, Mary Magdalene and Salome and Mary the mother of James went out and
purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on Sunday
morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they were asking
each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the
tomb?” But as they arrived, they looked up and saw that the stone, which was
very large, had already been rolled aside.” Mark
16:1-4 (NLT)
Now the excitement rose in each of them as they ran to tell
the disciples what happened. It was
still very early Sunday morning and the Bible says it was at sunrise, which
tells me it was going to be a very beautiful day and I’m sure fingers of pink,
blue and lavender had spread across the heavens. What a glorious day this was going to
be. Their hearts had to be pounding as
doubt and then hope rose up in them.
Then Peter arrived at the tomb and went in. “He also noticed the linen wrappings lying
there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying
apart from the other wrappings.” John 20:3-7 (NLT) This meant something more to the Jews than we can
understand, but Peter knew then that Jesus had risen from the dead just as he
had told them he would. I don’t know how
Peter was able to contain his excitement and joy as he returned home and told
the others what he had seen. Jesus was
alive! He had risen! What could be as glorious as that?
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