He is Gone

On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

But Mary stood outside facing the tomb, crying. As she was crying, she stooped to look inside the tomb. She saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet, where Jesus' body had been lying. They said to her, "Woman, why are you crying?" John 20:1; 11-13

Mary loved Jesus with all that she had and has watched Him be crucified and now He had disappeared.

None of the disciples caught the resurrection. Mary definitely didn't. She was in grief and could not see beyond her emotional pain.

Yet God had a plan. Satan thought he had beaten the Saviour. How foolish! The Sanhedrin thought they had rid themselves of Jesus and the disciples thought they had lost their treasure. How wrong can everybody be?

When we lose someone, that is the end of a time period in our lives, but there is more. We cannot see it, but God can.

All that is in the future is in God's hands and if we trust Him, all will be revealed one step at a time.

Today as my mum and I travelled home from Woolgooga, NSW we were faced with the thought: " do we have reason to go back any more?" The answer is no, not in the previous context, which was to visit our cousin Janice who had just died. However, who knows what God has in store. A 'but God' moment may just occur.

Jesus' death was the beginning of the next great phase in God's economy, the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Jesus had a plan that each of the remaining disciples would go out into their world with the good news that Jesus had risen from the dead. A movement was about to be born. A movement that has become a tide.