Written by: Rev. Sirlene Bustos, Costa Rica North District Superintendent<\/p>\n
\u201cWho will roll the stone away?\u201d . . . (it) was very large. <\/em>Mark 16:3b, 4b<\/strong><\/p>\n Biblically, resurrection day represents the climax of the Christian message.\u00a0 It is the day of victory and celebration.\u00a0 This is probably Peter\u2019s version, which is the story of the human response to the resurrection.\u00a0 There is little of the supernatural.\u00a0 It says nothing of the earthquake or the frightened soldiers.\u00a0 In this version, Jesus does not come out to meet the women. Nevertheless, here we find a beautiful lesson.<\/p>\n The women had attended Jesus when he was in Galilee, and they followed him to Jerusalem. In contrast to the other disciples, they were present at the foot of the cross when Jesus died. Their culture required them to anoint his body.\u00a0 Early in the morning they bought the spices they needed and, with pain in their hearts, went to complete their final ministry.\u00a0 Biblical commentators tell us the stone normally used in this circumstance was about two meters wide by one meter high.\u00a0 There were also other security measures taken at Jesus\u2019 tomb.\u00a0 From a human perspective, the question \u201cWho will roll the stone away?\u201d was appropriate. When they asked the question they were still far from the tomb and the sun had not yet risen, so they could not see clearly.\u00a0 There really are many obstacles when we try to see impossible, immovable things from far away.<\/p>\n Verse 4 says, \u201cbut when they looked up . . .<\/strong>\u201d, the problem was resolved.\u00a0 Without anyone doing anything, when Christ is raised in us, everything changes.\u00a0 They were looking for a dead body, but the young man dressed in white said, \u201cHe has risen! He is not here.<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0 They were afraid, but before the empty tomb the message is, \u201cDon\u2019t be alarmed<\/strong>.\u201d They came to the tomb to do a job of profound sadness caused by death, but left with a new commission that would bring life, hope and trust to many.\u00a0 They returned to the others sharing the marvelous news of the Risen Jesus.\u00a0 \u201cBut go .<\/strong> . .\u201d not only to those who were weeping over my death, but go also to Peter, who represents all who have betrayed and denied us.\u00a0 This comes with a beautiful promise. \u201cHe is going ahead of you<\/strong>.\u201d We cannot silence the message of the good news because of fear or our impossibilities.\u00a0 We draw near and see that the tomb is empty. \u201cJesus is ALIVE!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by: Rev. Sirlene Bustos, Costa Rica North District Superintendent \u201cWho will roll the stone away?\u201d . . . (it) was very large. Mark 16:3b, 4b Biblically, resurrection day represents the climax of the Christian message.\u00a0 It is the day of victory and celebration.\u00a0 This is probably Peter\u2019s version, which is the story of the <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":55591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3380],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}