God Moved the Stone Away

​Pastor's Easter Message

     ​“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.” Mark 16:2-8
    The women who came early to the tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday morning to anoint the Lord’s body with myrrh were faced with a few great challenges. The first was that since Jesus was crucified the day before the Sabbath (Saturday), the day on which according to the Jewish Law they were not allowed to do any work, they would be delayed until the next day for completing their task. The second was that, due to the circumstances surrounding the Lord’s trial and execution, their actions were probably under a watchful eye and visiting the tomb was most likely a dangerous action. At any rate, guards had been placed at the tomb, and who knows what orders they were under for dealing with anyone trying to gain access? Lastly, even if they were able to safely make it to the tomb undetected (albeit a day late) and to get past the guards, they still faced one last challenge: the large, heavy stone that had been secured at the entrance of the tomb.
     This was the obstacle that seemed to preoccupy them the most. “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” Indeed, it seemed to preoccupy them so much that as they nervously discussed the issue en route to the tomb, they became unaware their surroundings. Notice how they had to “look up” in order to actually notice that the stone had been rolled away? All the while they had been pondering about how they would get that stone away from the entrance to the tomb… how they would make the impossible possible. Yet, when they arrived at the tomb they saw that the stone had already been moved away for them. What a miracle! The impossible had been made possible by a power greater than their own – God’s power! Now I am sure they were amazed by what happened next: seeing the angel in the tomb and hearing the news that Christ was not in the tomb, but had indeed risen from the dead. However, the first emotion they experienced must have been relief that that stone wasn’t there. Now, that may have been for just a moment, as they may have soon after started to become alarmed as to why the stone had been moved. Was there something amiss? Had something happened to the Lord’s body? But nevertheless, even if it was only for a split second, I like to think that that first feeling in their heart was one of relief and gratefulness that the main obstacle they had worried about getting around had already been removed for them.
      Similarly to the women who needed to get to close to Jesus but faced an obstacle, sometimes there are obstacles to our getting close to God as well, and we feel that these obstacles are just too great for us to be able to get around. We want to go to him, to be in his presence, to be in his good graces, but there may be some sin or sinful habit, a reluctance or rebelliousness, or we have some kind of pain or anger that we are holding on to, which keeps us from being able to fully let go and come close to him in our hearts.
     What we need to understand, unlike the myrrh-bearing women of that first Easter Sunday, is that God knows our situation… he knows our needs and our necessities, more so than even realize! We often expect a lesson in problem solving, when what we really get is a lesson in having faith in God’s grace and trusting in his will.
     There is a story of a man who once fell off a cliff in the dark and on the way down grasped a branch and hung on for dear life. Exasperated at what had just happened, hanging there precariously in the dark, he realized he had to cling to that branch for dear life or else it meant certain doom for him. Weakening, he finally cried out to heaven, “Please, help me!” Then he heard the voice of God say, “Let go!”
    “But if I let go, I’ll surely die,” the man replied. But “Let go!” was the response that he heard. When finally he could hold on no longer, he did let go, knowing it was the horrible end. To his great surprise, the ground was only a foot below him!
     Only when we put our trust in God can we be freed from our worries and start to feel his power in our lives. Like he mercifully raised the very earth itself to meet that man, or rolled away the big stoned that stood as an obstacle in between the Holy Myrrh-bearers and Jesus’s body, our Lord will also come to us, bend to us, move mountains for us, when we need him to. He will find the solution. He will make things possible when they seem possible. We only have to seek out his will for our lives, much like the women sought out the body of their Lord and the man from the story sought out emergency aid from God in heaven.
      But the greatest obstacle God shows that he has removed today is the obstacle of death, and particularly spiritual death, which is the kind of eternal death that goes beyond the natural of the death of the physical body, which awaits every single human being. Spiritual death is the death that comes from being cut off from the divine presence of God completely. Jesus himself said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)
     We will all die a bodily death someday, but what we must try to avoid is the eternal death of our spirits. It’s like the stone rolled in front of the tomb… how do we avoid it? What can we do about it? How will ever be able to move it so we can get around it??   Thanks be to God that today the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ rolls that proverbial stone away and restores our relationship with God, our heavenly Father. The introit for today’s liturgy reads, “He trampled over death by his death, and by his resurrection granted us life.”
      Jesus’s death and resurrection is the “who will roll away the stone?” moment for us. We don’t know how or why, but he made the impossible possible for us. He made sinners like us, who stand convicted of sin and disobedience before the Almighty Judge, righteous and sinless before him. Not because we moved the stone ourselves, not because we figured out a way to save ourselves from the peril of the threatening abyss… but because he, through his steadfast love, saved us and invited us to inherit his eternal kingdom.
     Paul the Apostle, in his letter to the Romans, sums it up this way, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.” (Romans 5:6-9)
We have been justified through his blood. We have been saved through him… He has rolled the stone blocking our path to God away. Today, let us now wonder about how we will bring about all these things. Let us instead contemplate how God gives us what we need and makes the things that need to happen for us happen.
    Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, on this beautiful Easter Sunday morning, the stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty! Through the resurrected and glorified Jesus Christ, God is now closer to you, to me and to us than ever before! No more obstacles. No more worries. Believe in him, trust in him!

Prayerfully,
Fr. Stephan Baljian, Pastor
Holy Pascha - Holy Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ
March 31, 2024

---