Were You There When God Raised Him from the Tomb?

{This photo is one I took in 2007 when my husband and I traveled to Scotland. On the Isle of Iona, I climbed this hill, passing sheep along the way, and alone with the Lord, sat and watched the sunset one evening during Holy Week.}

Today is Holy Saturday. Its the day between Good Friday, when Jesus Christ was crucified, and Easter Sunday, when God raised Jesus, His Son, from the dead. I’m entering into “the tomb” this weekend, to sit in the silence, to feel the weight of it all, to experience the senses and imagine what it might have been like as God raised Jesus from the dead. With my human limitations, and incomplete knowledge, I am imagining something that we will finally know in all its more glorious detail when we enter into eternity. This is a simple piece of writing that is a tool to help one delve deeper into the reality of Christ’s resurrected, physical, and eternally present body that was given for you and for me, and for the life of the world.

{On the Isle of Iona stands a 1,000 year old cross.}

Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

-African American Spiritual

A wind blew through the garden under the cover of a tormented night sky. It would soon be morning. Dewdrops quivered on the pure white lilies growing in the garden outside of the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had laid his lifeless body there, wrapped in linen and adorned with spices. Torn flesh and spilled blood, poured out for the life of the world. His body drained of life, now dead, cold, and empty. A body with no spirit is a vacant body, beginning the process of a slow decay back to dust from which humanity was formed.

“For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
    or let your holy one see corruption.” Psalm 16:10

The air was still. The fragrance of spices were present. Death was having its way, and the curse was doing its work of destruction on the Son of God, the Son of Man. The body of Jesus lay on a stone table. A cloth lay across the face of one whose eyes had looked into the faces of sinners as he declared them forgiven and loved, as he healed their wounds and forgave their debts they could not pay.

“He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:3-5

Silence.

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55

The Breath of Life that hovered over the waters at Creation, entered the tomb, entered the Body, filling His lungs with oxygen. The Breath of Life that breathed life into Adam and Eve’s created bodies, brought what was lifeless to life and quickened every cell in His body. Decay did not have a fighting chance to reduce the Creator to dust.

In front of the Iona Abbey, is a sunken garden surrounded by a stone wall and every spring, new life returns to the garden.

The linens dropped from Jesus’ body. He folded the cloth that covered his face and gently placed it off to the side. He looked down at his hands and at the eternal wounds that would forever be a witness of His sacrifice. He breathed deeply. The stone in front of the tomb moved away from the entrance. The air from the tomb mingled with the fragrances of the garden. Our Lord breathed in his creation and emerged from the tomb. Each step of his feet pressing into the moist earth, moving amongst the olive trees, feeling the tender leaves between his fingers, listening to the wind, and gazing up into the sky as slivers of light pierced the darkness and gave way to a new morning. And all the host of Heaven beheld His glory.

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they shall reign on the earth.”

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, 

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Revelation 5:5-14 ESV

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!