Have you ever felt stuck in a dark place? Maybe you felt like all the good times you’ve experienced in the past will be no more, or maybe you have felt so overcome by grief that nothing good could come out of it.
This week, our memory verse is found after the Resurrection when the women come to find the tomb of Jesus empty. Once they started grieving, the angels said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24:5)
After reading this text, I can’t help but think of what is going through the minds of these women. They expected to come and find the body of Jesus lying in the tomb. They expected to see the wounds on his body where he had been beaten. However, what they experienced was nothing like what they had expected. There was no body of Jesus, an empty tomb, and angels! Only when the angels speak to them do they realize the prophecies of Jesus’s Resurrection had come true.
It’s important to note that these women were grieving the loss of their Lord, but I also think they could have been upset by the fact things were not like they had expected them to be.
Sometimes, I think we need a wakeup call to realize God is not where we expect God to be. I often think that we believe God is stuck in the ways of the past. However, we haven’t yet realized that we are simply looking in the cemetery to find Jesus. We are bound by the ways we have seen God in the past, which is hindering us from seeing God in the present.
Just like the women at the tomb, I pray that we find our wake up call to run away from the tomb and begin to share the message of what God has done in our lives. I pray that we learn to see God in new ways so that we can begin telling more and more people about the great things that are happening in our midst.
Our world needs good news right now. We are surrounded by news of death and suffering. What our world needs is a word of hope and Resurrection. This week, might we find God anew and run to tell all the world about it!
I look forward to seeing you in worship on Sunday and celebrating the ways in which God is at work here in Miami!
Peace and blessings,
Pastor Kipp