The Tomb is Empty

Easter mornings, when my brother and sister and I were kids, we would wake up excited.

On Easter sunday mornings, although we would have to make the usual sacrifice of getting on those tight shoes, and putting on a tie and sitting in a church pew for what seemed like ages, on Easter the reward was a hunt for those chocolate eggs that mom and dad had hidden around the house.

Every family has it’s traditional way of ensuring that everybody gets a fair shot at the eggs, and in mine that meant that each of us kids had a room in the house all to ourselves. We would tear the rooms apart, looking for those chocolate treasures, and then gulp them down as fast as we could, so that we wouldn’t have to share, leaving only the empty wrappers on the floor as a reminder of all that sweetness.

After the gorging would come the penance. Off to church we went and, as if the length of the service wasn’t enough, after church on Easter Sunday we would make the rounds of the cemeteries. My family, even though most of them lived fairly close to one another (nothing is never far away, relatively speaking, in New England) seemed to showed an appalling lack of consideration to their future generations by having their corpses interred as far apart as possible.

It’s not like they didn’t get along in life. Mine was a family filled with love for one another, at least as much love as a people of that generation were able to show. Still, they insisted on colonizing cemetaries all over the city of Providence and it’s environs. Like so much seed cast upon the fields. So, Easter became a time of chocolate bunnies and visits to tombs.

Today, as I sat in church, listening to Rev. Dukes (she is a REAL reverend) I was struck by something. A great realization. The work of the Holy Spirit perhaps?

All those visits to cemeteries that we made, and still make today, have reinforced a great truth that I've just been too blind to see. The fact of the matter is that because of Jesus’ great sacrifice, ALL the stones have been rolled away from ALL the tombs. Like Mary Magdeline learned, the ones we go there to seek are not there. They are ALL risen, and are seated at the hand of the Father.

Yes, all the tombs are empty, for the ones we seek are risen…they are risen indeed.

Peace to you all, and a very happy Easter season.