ROLLING AWAY STONES
Easter Morning begins in darkness
A darkness of despair and disillusionment
A darkness of “Why did He die?” and “What will happen now?”
A darkness in the heart of a mother who has lost her son
A darkness in a group of followers who have lost their leader
But into every darkness comes a light
At first faint
Then growing in strength and clarity
As shadows are dispelled
And darkness recedes
And morning breaks
A stone is rolled away
And a tomb is found to be empty
And as in the days of the prophet Isaiah “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light”
-Stephen Ring (1998)
AND THEY ASKED EACH OTHER, “WHO WILL ROLL THE STONE AWAY FROM THE ENTRANCE OF THE TOMB?” BUT WHEN THEY LOOKED UP, THEY SAW THAT THE STONE, WHICH WAS VERY LARGE, HAD BEEN ROLLED AWAY.
MARK 16:3-4
To understand why this passage has come to have significance for me, you need to understand something about my reaction to the first Easter sunrise service I attended here at a local cemetery
I don’t like cemeteries-I actually had a fear of cemeteries as a child. The first death I had to deal with as a child was my grandmother, the second was my grandfather, and in 1980 my mother died very suddenly and unexpectedly. The first Easter Sunrise service in recent memory I went to was in 1991, and in one part of my being, I honestly didn’t want to go, because that was the first time I was in this cemetery since my mother died. I don’t believe in going to gravesites after a death of a loved one, because I don’t believe that the essence of what makes up a person is here in a grave any more.
You need to understand these things about me in order to understand why these verses have had such an impact on me.
I want to consider those women going to the tomb that first Easter Sunday morning.
I expect they didn’t want to be there in some secret place of their heart either. They were dumbfounded and disillusioned at the loss of the Master. But they desired to perform this one last act of service, of respect, to the body of the man they had followed, listened to and served for the past several months. They were filled with despair---remember the events of that first Easter were in the process of unfolding. They didn’t know the story like we do.
Then we read in Mark’s account that one of them suddenly has a horrible thought. “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
Has that ever happened to you? Have you had a desire to serve the Lord, a longing to be able to fill some need, some vacancy, and yet you were stopped up short by the realization that there existed a great obstacle, a stone, which was very large in your path. Maybe it’s a stone of uncertainly, a stone of depression, a stone of lack of confidence. In despair and frustration you say, “Well, that’s that! I can’t do this!” “I’m too young” or “I’m too old” or “I’d just fall on my face.”.
We are really good at finding the obstacles in our path, and we often detour around them, or stop trying. I have come to believe that when God gifts a person in a particular area of ministry, and if that person, recognizing that gift and is willing to offer up that gift to God, that God in turn will cause the imaginary stones on our paths to disappear, or He, through His grace and power, and sometimes through others, will roll away a stone that is an obstacle in our Christian walk.
Look at verse 4. But when they looked up, they saw that the stone which was very large had been rolled away.
The perceived problem didn’t exist. The stone had already been rolled away, and it is clear that no human agency accomplished the task. I love how Mark describes the stone ----it was a large-it was big and heavy and cumbersome and beyond the capability of man’s strength to be moved.
God moves stones. He moves stones and obstacles in our lives. Situations can come together in a marvellous way. {Illustrations -Powells move here and the preparations of God in taking them to locations near water-the things that they desire in a home-the whole landed immigration process-the timing of the sale of their house}
God removes exterior “stones” as it were, and if they not meant to be moved, He gives the grace and strength to bear the burden of those stones.
But God removes interior “stones” as well. Stones of anger, Stones of stubbornness, Stones of frustration to give us hearts of love, hearts of patience, hearts filled with peace.
When my wife and I were married in 1981 and went on our honeymoon we took a day trip to Peggy’s Cove in the Province of Nova Scotia and had the pleasure of talking with DeGarthe, a resident artist. He owned a small house along the rocky cliff of Peggy’s Cove and in fact in his backyard was this long jutting piece of rock, that we discovered him working at with a chisel. He was carving a masterpiece in his backyard. We talked with him on this occasion and a subsequent year when we returned to Peggy’s’ Cove. The sculpture was of the woman PEGGY for whom the area gets many legends and is named, and a boat filled with fishermen. DeGarthe showed us a hollowed out section of the work and explained he had left instructions that on his death he was to be cremated and the urn with his ashes was to be sealed in his masterpiece. Upon DeGarthe’s death, his wishes were carried out. The Nova Scotia Government passed legislation establishing the backyard of the DeGarthe home a Provincial Park-the reason being to preserve the masterpiece he had carved out of the stone, which was very large, in his backyard.
God works somewhat like DeGarthe, with one difference. The God that rolls away stone begins by dwelling within us, and he takes the chisel, and cuts away the stones in our lives that need to be removed, that God’s masterpiece in us may be seen. Sometimes he chisels away and in pain and anguish we submit and are convicted. Sometimes, he just pushes a great stone out of the way, and He moves in to fill the vacancy.
Like I said, I didn’t want to come to an Easter Sunrise Service seven years ago...there was a stone that I thought would be too hard to remove. A memory, a loss, a pain...whatever.
I actually only remember one thing about that Easter Sunrise Service. Our Associate Pastor, Brian Barr, sang a beautiful song that heralded in the morning. I don’t remember the verses...I only remember one line of the chorus..... “Then came the morning..”
The reason is that as Brian Barr sang that song, I looked out over towards the Bay of Fundy, and saw the sun coming up.
And as I reflect on that event, I think I have discovered what happened. God was rolling away another stone.
I’m not afraid of cemeteries anymore.
And I understand in a more powerful way than ever before that Easter may begin in darkness-but the point of Easter is the dispelling of darkness for people who walk in darkness. That the stones that blot out the light are rolled away, that God’s sun (SON) shines forth.
Those three women discovered the truth that first Easter morning once the stone, which was very large, was rolled away.
How about you?
-Stephen Ring, written for an Easter Sunrise Service in 1998.
