Get Up Like the Women
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
I hope you've had a special weekend contemplating the death of Christ on Friday, experiencing the silence of Christ on Saturday, and then celebrating the resurrection of Christ on Sunday!
I always feel very much lost on Easter Saturday. I am still reeling from the heaviness of Good Friday. But I know Sunday is coming, and I can't get too down.
The disciples, on the other hand, would have been absolutely destroyed on that Easter Saturday. Because they didn't know that Sunday was coming! They thought they had just seen the end - Jesus on a cross and being laid in a tomb was the worst possible end of this journey they'd been on.
I picture them in utter defeat. Utter brokenness. Too sad to eat, too sad to get up. Just crushed.
While the Men Sat Down, the Women Got Up
But Sunday morning comes, and a change happens. Because while the men kept lying around in shock and defeat, the women began to get active. (Trust the women to get going while the men sit around!)
The women wake up on that Sunday morning and they decide: let's do something. Let's not just sit here. Let's do something.
This is profound! Because when facing tragedies in our lives - crosses of our own, defeats of our own - the tendency is to let them overwhelm us, and paralyse us. The temptation for many of us is to stay down when we've been hit.
Have you been there? So overcome by difficulty and pain that you just end up paralysed, sitting in shock trying to come to terms with things?
The women who followed Jesus did that on Saturday. They sat in shock and did nothing.
But on Sunday they got up and got going.
Getting Up When Life Has Knocked You Down
Perhaps you're tired of being overwhelmed and defeated. Perhaps you're tired of living a life where tragedy and hardships almost bury you.
Perhaps you don't want to stay down anymore!
Perhaps you need to get up, you need to stand up and do something. Yes, the pain is real, yes the hardships are real, and for many of us this is a very difficult step - but we need to stop sitting around and being miserable and do something.
Everything changed when the women stopped moping about and got up and did something. I believe the same will be true for us.
The women at the empty tomb refused to stay paralysed by grief - they got up, and that changed everything. Whatever has knocked you down lately, take a step of faith today and get moving.