A Busy Place

A few weeks ago I made a trip down to Waycross, Georgia where I was born and where so many of my family are buried.  Actually, it was not the attractions of the town that sent me on my trip, but the graveyards in the countryside.  I wanted to stand alongside my father's grave at a small country cemetery.  I ended up standing at his grave, the graves of uncles and aunts, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  The two cemeteries were quiet places.  I never saw another soul walking the grounds where so many had been left.  But, then, no one expects a graveyard to be a busy place.

 

As we read the Easter story today, it is a different picture that we see.  The place Jesus had been buried could be characterized as a graveyard and it was as busy that Sunday morning as "Grand Central Station."  People were coming and going.  Some were walking and some were running. Some were amazed ordinary folks, others were bewildered soldiers.  There were even angels present to help bring clarity to the emptiness of the empty tomb.  And, of course, somewhere around was the One who had been put there dead only a few days earlier.  The sun had hardly shown itself and the place which should have been quiet was filled was so much coming and going.

 

Imagine for a moment what was happening just on the other side.  If there is a thin veil between here and there, between earth and heaven, between the sounds of mortals and the sounds of the angelic, then imagine for a moment the scurrying about to see and the sounds of trumpets reverberating through the courtyards of the eternal.  Jesus had risen.  Never had earth or heaven had such news to proclaim.  It is still the same on this holy day.  Never has earth or heaven had such news to proclaim.  Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!