Today being Easter Sunday, I decided to read all four of the gospel accounts of our Savior's last days. Wow! If you have never done this all at one time before, I highly recommend it. What a feast. What a journey! I read the accounts as a harmony, meaning that I kept flipping from account to account for each day of the Savior's last days rather than reading each gospel account straight through one at a time. After reading with sadness each of the accounts of Jesus's sufferings in Gethsemane and on the cross, my heart thrilled with the words "He is not here but is risen". My heart felt, in some small way, a sympathetic joy with what Mary must have felt when at the Savior's gently spoken word,"Mary", she recognized her Savior in the garden!
Years ago, when my children were small, I used to place pictures of Jesus from the gospel art kit on the walls in our home at Easter time...a tradition that I think I need to revisit in our home. I wanted my children to focus on the true meaning of Easter in spite of...or in the midst of...all of the Easter Bunny hype. As I was placing these pictures one year, I was really drawn to one of them. This picture, rather than being a painting, is a photograph. I had always passed over it before as it was not as colorful and attractive to me as are all the other pictures that I would get out for Easter. It had always been my least favorite and I usually placed it in the least favorable spot. Some years I contemplated leaving it out altogether.
My favorite up to that time had always been the one that depicts the Savior with Mary outside the garden tomb, and it had always gotten top billing on our wall.
But this time it was the "ugly duckling" picture that drew me in. This, the least attractive picture of them all, became most real to me that day and I couldn't stop looking at it. This picture was an actual photograph of the tomb. The thing that struck me that day was that the tomb...was open. As I quietly pondered on this thought that day, the significance of that fact slowly dawned upon me. It is an open tomb, my thoughts kept whispering...he is risen...he is REALLY risen! And because he lives, we...and all whom we love...shall also live again! (1 John 4:9) I wish I had words to adequately describe to you the feelings I felt that day as I pondered upon that most wonderful fact...and placed this lowly picture in the center and most favored place on our wall. I love to ponder upon this thought anew every now and then as I come across this picture...and as I look into the faces of my husband, children, and loved ones. Can anything be more significant in our lives than this knowledge...than this is truth? No wonder our hearts thrill when we sing the alleluias in our Easter and Christmas hymns! HE IS RISEN! May we all enjoy a wonderful Easter...today and always!
RC
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