After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week,
Mary Magdelene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord
came down from Heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled away the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow. The
guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know
that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has
risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly
and tell His disciples: He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you
into Galilee. There you will see Him. Now I have told you.”
So the women hurried away, terrified yet full of joy, and
ran to tell His disciples. Suddenly, Jesus
met them. “Greetings,” He said. They came and clasped His feet and
worshiped Him. Then Jesus said, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to
go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Terrified and full of joy. This isn’t the first time I have
been here, have felt this strange mix of emotion that is both trepidation and
wonder, hesitation and excitement. Fittingly, I seem to find myself here most
often during the season of Easter. This isn’t the first time this story has
spoken deeply to my heart, stating exactly what I do not have words for.
Our family is extraordinarily blessed to have a small, three-bedroom
“house” in our backyard. Over the years we have been very privileged to have
people of many kinds live with us here as they recover from set-backs and move
toward what God has for them next. Sick people who have been discharged from
the local hospital but still have no place to rest, homeless families looking
for jobs or a means of support, friends, who have quickly become like family,
all of them looking for Jesus, looking for love. People have been loved to new
life here, and some have been loved straight into the arms of Jesus.
In the quiet of the evening, after I have kissed cheeks and
tucked in bodies and prayed over sleepy little heads, I sneak out to the back
yard and I watch the new life. Anna reads to her son, Simon, as they wait for
the 8th in a series of surgeries to repair his esophagus. They stay
here so that they can be close to a hospital in case of an emergency, but Anna
helps me and encourages me more than she knows. Yusufu, recently homeless in
the community of Masese due to illness that caused him to lose his job, serves
food to his two young children, Mariam and Shafik. In the morning, he will go
again to dig in the garden and save up the money he makes so that they can move
out and stand on their own two feet. Agnes, partially paralyzed due to a stroke
and left to die by family members who were afraid and did not understand her
condition, sleeps soundly next to her three year old, Lotuke, tired from a long
day of walking practice. I bet she’ll be able to do it without her cane any day
now! Margaret, her tiny, twenty year-old body ravished by AIDS, discharged from
the hospital but with nowhere to go, smiles brightly at me with her son, Sam in
her lap.
Beauty from ashes. I don’t just know it to be true, I get to
live it. We get to watch redemption take place, we get to reach out and touch
it, we get to be a part of it.
And then Margaret groans that her stomach hurts. In a
moment, I am in a different place at a different time with another friend whose
stomach had hurt. We are at the hospital and they are telling us that there is
nothing they can do. I slowly watch her get worse and worse. I hold her hand
and I read the Psalms, and she breathes her last. I can hardly breathe. I reach
out to hold Margaret’s hand and it looks so similar to a hand I held not toolong ago – a hand I held for hours that turned into days and days that turned
into weeks until finally I got to place her hand in the hands of Jesus as He
took her from this earth. I blink. It is just a stomachache.
Makerere walks by and I catch a glimpse of the scar on his
leg, a scar that God used to heal my heart. I breathe long and deep all that
God is doing in this place, all that He is allowing me to participate in, and
my heart swells with gratitude, with deep, unshakable joy. And in the same
breath, just like the women at the tomb, I am terrified. Because I know it to
be true: in order to experience the deep joys of the Father, we must experience
the heartaches, too. In order to know Jesus the way that I have known Him, I
have had to give my heart to people in ways that I would never have chosen.
I can see the women with their eyes wide as they tremble in
front of the tomb. They listen to the angel’s words – can it be? – and they
scurry, terrified and filled with joy.
Is it possible to be full of joy
and thankfulness and simultaneously afraid of what obedience might bring next?
I feel it stirring in my heart, the strange mix of pain and excitement that I
will feel as each of our friends here transitions into the new life, outside of
our home, that God has planned for them; the strange and devastating love that
grows when we love the way Christ has loved us.
I sit there in the candle light,
13 growing young women sleeping soundly a few yards away and all kinds of lives
being transformed before my eyes. I sit, terrified and full of joy.
And Jesus meets me. And He says, “Do not be afraid.”
And I ask simply, “How?” Because
as excited as I am about all He has planned, there is no denying that sometimes
I am just plain scared.
His answer comes clear, steady.
“Go and tell my brothers. Go and tell them the good news. Go and tell all the
world that they will see me. They will
see me.”
And His words ring true. We see
Him here, in the midst of pain and hurt and suffering, we see His glory all
around. We see Him reconciling all things to Himself, drawing all nations to
Himself, making all things new.
I fall at His feet and worship
Him, for it is the only thing I know to do. I clasp His feet and remember all
He has done for me and all He has yet to do. I remember His resurrection - Life
from death. Beauty from ashes. Beauty from the torture and the nail scars and
the blood red life spilling out everywhere. Beauty from the black of the tomb.
And He does this here in my life, He gives us life to the fullest, and we can
see Him, even here.
We tremble. Because who wouldn’t
tremble at the feet of the Savior? At just a glimpse of all He might have
planned? But as we trust, we fill with joy and peace, we overflow with hope,
just as it is promised. We know all He has done for us, and we know all that He
has yet to do when He brings us into His kingdom.
And my prayer today is that we
might not be afraid. Friend, whatever it is you are facing, do not be afraid. Whatever
it is He is calling you to in obedience, rest assured – you will see Him! Go
and tell the world of what He has done for us, for you! We can trust Him. And
today, every day, we REJOICE in Him!
*I have asked my friends if I
could use their names in these stories in the hopes that you would join me in
prayer for each of them. As the Lord brings us to mind would you pray? We are
so grateful.