What giant stone stands in your way? What stops you from becoming what you want to become? You have dreams, hopes, goals. But something stops you. Not enough money? Not enough time? Maybe. But I would guess that some very large spiritual thing stands in your way. If you sift through all the stuff in your life that isn’t the way you want it to be, the sifting will turn up one huge spiritual issue. I suggest that most of us live with an immense blockade that keeps us from being all that our deepest souls desire to be.
Several years ago, I was conducting a wedding rehearsal at the University of Maryland chapel. The rehearsal had not gone very well. It was mid-summer, and the chapel was beastly hot. We were having heavy afternoon thundershowers, so that the humidity and the noise were getting on everyone’s nerves. Some of the bridesmaids had come late; some of the groomsmen had not come at all; the organist wanted to leave early; and the groom said he would much rather be lying on the beach nursing something cool. So the bride and her mother began to fight. About what? About everything. The bride wanted her maid of honor to stand here; the mother said she should be over there. The bride wanted her father to escort her to the altar, give her a swift kiss, and then sit down; the mother wanted the father to stay right there, firmly in place between the bride and the groom, until death do them part. These two women snapped and snarled at each other, while the rest of us vainly tried to smooth thing over.
Things came to a climax when the mother swung from the shoulder and slapped her daughter squarely in the face, then turned and ran straight down one hundred and ten feet of chapel aisle, out into a driving rainstorm. Dramatic stuff! We stood there with our mouths hanging wide open. It was one of those moments in which somebody needs to say something intelligent. “Nice weather for a wedding” doesn’t cut it! There was a very awkward silence. But the father finally broke the silence. He had a word for it. He explained it all. He told me how to interpret what had just happened. His explanation of his wife’s bizarre behavior, “Well, you see, she’s from Georgia.”
“She’s from Georgia.” That explains everything, doesn’t it? I must confess, that didn’t tell me anything. Being from Georgia might explain a fondness for peaches or a desire to do an Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop in the springtime, but just how would it explain slapping your daughter and trotting off into the thunderstorm? That was beyond me.
The next day, after we managed to hold the wedding, I got the father off in a corner. He told me more. It seems that the family had moved from Georgia to Maryland eight years earlier so that he could take a new job. His wife had not wanted to come. She had no friends here. She thought it was too busy, too big. She was afraid for their daughter: she might meet the wrong people (like this groom); she might get into bad habits. This woman had never wanted to leave Georgia. And so everything, great or small, in their family’s life, for eight years had centered on this one issue. Every decision had been flavored with, “If we were still in Georgia .. “. Every problem had been factored with, “If we had not left Georgia .. “. Every single situation in this family’s life had been blocked with one great spiritual obstacle, one insurmountable roadblock. And though it might seem trivial to you or to me, it was not trivial to her. It was the stone around which she could not go. It was the blockage she could not resolve. Rolled up against the gate of her life, slapped in place and sealed there, so that nothing worked. Nothing was right. A spiritual defeat. An unbeatable enemy. She was stopped right in her tracks. “She’s from Georgia.”
I wonder how many of us are caught behind stones like that. There is that one huge issue in your life, that one defining moment. You cannot get around it. It shapes everything. It stops everything. It looms large. It’s a huge, heavy stone, and no one has been able to move it. It may seem trivial to others, or it may be truly immense. But the issue is that it is standing in your way. It is keeping you from being what you could be. It’s a spiritual blockade, standing in the path.
Today I want to introduce you to somebody who moves the heaviest and most daunting of stones. I want to introduce you to someone who is able to roll the stone out of your way and give you freedom. I want to introduce you to Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. Because He lives, we too can live. Because He is risen from the dead, He is able to give us life, and life abundant.
What stones stand in our way?
I
For some of us, the great blocking stone is that secret we carry around. Living with a secret. We are hiding something that we don’t want others to know about. We want to do and to be more than we are, but there is this great secret, and, if it were to get out, we would be ruined.
Some people keep it secret that they’ve run afoul of the law. You got involved in something; you knew it was wrong. You got caught and served some time. Or maybe you didn’t get caught. But either way, it’s something you live with and think about every single day. And, oh, if my employer knew, he’d throw me out. If my wife knew, she’d send me packing. If my children knew, they’d be ashamed. We live with secrets.
Some people live with painful secrets. Some live with the secret called alcoholism; it hurts to admit it, and we’ll do everything possible to hide it, deathly afraid it might come out. Some live with secrets about their sexual identities and histories; they know they are gay, but feel there is no way they can ever say that word to parents or friends or employers. Or they conceived a child out of wedlock, a long time ago, and it feels so awkward every time someone wants to know who the father is. Painful secrets – the knowledge that back in college you cheated your way through that final examination; the memory of that night, away from home, that you let the passion of the moment rule; the gnawing fear that grips your heart at tax time because in the past you lied on your tax form. Secrets! And the terror is not only that we feel ashamed of ourselves, but even worse, that we spend so much energy hiding these things from others. What if, what if? That stuff exhausts us, doesn’t it? It drains us to hide and run and cover up all the time! It exhausts us to live with secrets. Living with secrets is a great stone, standing in the way of what we could become.
On the day that Jesus died, one man at least let go of his secret. One man found that he no longer wanted to hide. John’s Gospel tells us that Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent citizen of Jerusalem, was a secret disciple of Jesus. He lived with that secret, afraid of what the others would do to him. But when Jesus died, Joseph of Arimathea let go of his fears. Joseph decided it was no longer worth it to keep his secret.
After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body.
Friends, the cross of Jesus Christ sends a message to every one of us who is living with a secret. The message is that God cares about us. God loves us unconditionally. The message of the cross is that God loves us even with our secrets and our shame and our sin. When we stop and look at the very Son of God, dying at Calvary in agony, dying for my secret guilt and for your hidden shame, then suddenly it’s not important to hide any more. It’s not of any value to conceal anything any more. Like Joseph, we can let go of our secrets. Like Joseph, we can turn it all over to Christ. Christ knows our faults, and instead of condemning us, He loves us to the end! He has discovered our secrets, but instead of writing us off, He opens His arms to us! We can let go of our secrets!
Don’t live one more day stymied behind the stone of secrets. Get them out into the open. Confess before God whatever it is that is holding you back. The cross can mean for you what it meant for Joseph of Arimathea: a time to let go of the secrets. A time to come out into the light. A time to know the love of God that surpasses all understanding. A time to step out from behind the stone of stumbling. Just let go of the secrets and see how He will love you.
I introduce you to Jesus Christ, the crucified one, whose sacrificial death and all-embracing love make the stone of secrets no longer necessary.
II
But then there are others who live behind other stones. There are those who live behind the stone of fear and suspicion. There are those whose lives are clamped down in unfulfilling relationships and hostile circumstances. Those who find nothing but fear and suspicion everywhere they turn.
I have seen people with such potential. People who had the talent and the skills to do all kinds of things. But because they did not trust anybody, they clamped down on all that potential, and did almost nothing. I have seen people who felt that they were the only ones who could do anything right. Nobody else can do it. And so because they did not trust others, they blocked their own progress, they put a stone in their own path. When we create a suspicious environment, when we make a hostile climate, our fear not only tells others they are no good; our fear also holds us back from fulfilling all that God wants for us. Fear puts death in the heart. Death.
And lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, check by the church office sometime and find out how many things I do myself because, at rock bottom, I don’t trust other people to do them right! But every time I do that, I rob others of growth, and I rob myself of joy and of fulfillment. I put a roadblock in my path. If I create an atmosphere of fear and suspicion. What a mess I am? Who will free me from this?
Did you notice that those who killed Jesus were not satisfied with that? They had to do more. Their fears were not calmed; they never are. The fear-filled personality never gets over its suspicion, no matter how many assurances are given. And so Matthew tells us:
The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ’After three days I will rise again.’ Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ’He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can." So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.
Some of us, like the chief priests and Pharisees, let our fears and our suspicions take over. We will go to extremes to protect things that don’t need protecting. We will seal the stones of our hearts and squeeze out all the joy. Who will help us? Who will free us? We need fulfillment; we need to hope.
Let me again introduce you to Jesus, who moves the stones of stumbling and offers us freedom and life. Let me point you to Jesus, who will roll away the stone of suspicion.
III
They found it, the women, that morning. They found hope through a simple step of faith:
And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised;
Fulfillment and hope were born that Easter day. The very large stones that blockade your life and mine were rolled away. The women made their way to the tomb and acted on the faith they had. They didn’t know what to expect. They couldn’t anticipate that their friend and teacher would be alive. No one could have dared hope for that. But they exercised faith anyway. “Who will roll away the stone for us?” They believed that somebody would. They went in confidence that God would make a way out of no way. That’s really all it took; just a little faith. Just a few steps, venturing out into the goodness of God.
And didn’t God satisfy?! Didn’t God come through? Didn’t God do more than they ever expected? The stone was rolled away, and their world knew freedom. The stone was rolled away, and their hearts knew hope. The stone was rolled away, and everything that had held them back was wiped away and defeated.
For when Jesus Christ came from the grave, it meant that the old dismal secret called sin was defeated. It need have no more power over us. Whatever we’ve done, whatever secrets our hearts still harbor, it doesn’t matter. It can be dealt with. The stone is rolled away! The living Christ has the leverage to move the stone of secrecy. It’s gone! He is alive!
When Jesus Christ came from the grave, it meant that all our suspicions could vanish. When Jesus Christ came from the grave, it meant that all that stuff we fear about other people can just go in the trash. There are no more enemies! There are no more losers. The worst enemy we have is death, and, guess what, death? You’ve lost out! You’re cancelled. You’re nothing, no more. The stone is rolled away. The living Christ has the leverage to move the stone of suspicion. It’s gone! He is alive!
And so,
Because He lives, we can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives.
