An Angel Rolled Back the Stone and Sat on It

March 18, 2008 Rev. Clara Mills After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. Matthew 28:1-2 Easter, for Christians, is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from death. Christians believe that Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. But the burial of Jesus was not the final chapter in his life’s story for he was fully restored to newness of life. What an amazing story this is! I can imagine the awesome effect the disciples experienced when seeing a living Jesus after witnessing him taking his last breath, being buried, and securely entombed behind a heavy stone enclosure. This Easter story is filled with life changing, life empowering, thought altering imagery. It is a story that challenges the hearer to possibility thinking. This story invites the observer to set aside limiting objective beliefs about what should happen and enter a world in which the impossible is the reality. On the Sabbath morning, following the death of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to visit Jesus’ tomb. It would have been customary for them to do so. They would probably have taken spices and fragrant flowers to honor the life of one they adored. Many of us visit the gravesites of loved ones even today, continuing this same practice. We take flowers and other symbols of love and affection to honor the person whose life and presence meant so much to us. This morning, however, the two Marys, going about life in a manner characteristic of those who were in mourning, were to have their world forever altered. As if knowing Jesus prior to his crucifixion had not already catapulted them into a world in which the supernatural was the norm, this Sabbath morning would take them on a belief journey of unparalleled heights.    On this Sabbath morning, the two Mary’s’ belief systems would be shaken to the core. They would be left to accept that all the things which would keep Jesus dead and in the tomb had been removed and that Jesus was now alive, or they could offer some other rational scientific explanation for this unusual turn of events. In this scenario, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary chose to look at life in a new way. They were able to put aside a belief system that dictated what should have been and live into a belief system that said,  “With God all things are possible.”   There are times during the lives of every human being, when as we journey through life we experience circumstances that seem beyond our human ability to manipulate. It could be an illness, the death of a loved one, the feeling of being betrayed, the loss of a job and financial security, and the spiraling out of control consequences of this drastic change, or any other number of scenarios that leave us feeling helpless and hopeless. Life is never without its ups and downs for every individual. Like the weather that shines one day and rains another day, each person’s life journey is a series of twists and turns, failures and triumphs, losses and gains, deaths and resurrections. This Easter story beckons us to recognize, not the circumstances that leave us feeling lifeless, but the stones that keep in lifeless situations. Dwelling on lifeless experiences, tormenting our minds with unanswerable questions of how and why we are in whatever tomb we are in, only serves to perpetuate the lifeless situation we claim so desperately to want out of. Stuff happens! We must learn from each experience and not allow the experience itself to become the heavy stone that keeps us from living a free and productive life. There are no stones weighty enough to keep any of us from rising to immense heights of financial prosperity, spiritual serenity, familial health and wholeness, professional accomplishment, or any goal we aspire to. Once we accept the truth that the God, who called the heavens and earth into being by the mere sound of his voice, is the same God who fashioned each of us out of His own likeness. Once we accept the truth that God wills us to be the very best we can be and that with God as our champion in life, there is no mountain we cannot tunnel through and no river that is unable to be crossed. Once we accept that we are destined to be victorious and that every crisis is but an opportunity to call on strengths and abilities we had not heretofore utilized, once we accept these truths, every stone that seems to have imprisoned us will be removed. I contend that it is our thinking determines where we are in life. We create our own reality by how we respond to events and circumstances. My maternal grandmother, Ethel Virginia Tatnall, taught me a song when I was a teenager and the words are: Hallelujah, anyhow. Never let your troubles get you down. When trouble comes your way, Hold your head up high and say, Hallelujah anyhow. My prayer for each of us is that the angels of God will descend upon our lives, shaking asunder any limiting thinking that keeps us entombed in lifeless circumstances; May these angels of the Almighty God roll away the stones of fear and despondency and give us to power to sit on the very stones which kept us from living as free, healthy, and prosperous sons and daughters of God. May each of us greet each day with the words from one of Dr. Seuss classics: Today I am me and I am freer that free. There is no one is the world who is meer than me. I am the best I can possibly be.