He is Not Here For He Has Risen!

Rejoice!  He has risen!

It must not have felt like "happy time in the garden" that Resurrection Morning when the women went to officially anoint the body of Jesus for burial and found His body gone.  After all, this was only a few days after they had witnessed His cruel and painful crucifixion.  They had seen His blood pour from His head where the Roman soldiers had placed a crown of thorns. They had watched as a soldier pierced His side.

He was gone.  He had died.  What were they to do now?  I have often wondered why they didn't just believe.

Before He died, He walked around teaching about faith and trust and belief in Him saying that to know Him was to know the Father Who sent Him.  Almost certainly there had been a time when the women and the Twelve were standing nearby as Jesus answered the Jews who doubted Him, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

Did they not realize this was the third day?

They must not have taken Him seriously because here they were on their way to anoint His body.  He had been removed from the cross just before sundown that fateful Friday evening at which time the Sabbath would begin.  Some men had hurriedly placed His body in a borrowed tomb because Jewish law dictated that they would be able to do no work on the Sabbath; perhaps the walk to the cross where He would have been left hanging was further than the law allowed them to walk to be able to remove His body on the Sabbath.  Certainly it was considered work to have performed a ritualistic and formal burial.

Yet if they had listened.  If they had only believed what He said - He told them He would raise up the temple that was His body.

Perhaps they, like we, believed IN Him but failed to simply believe.  I am ashamed to admit that I have been doubtful at times about why He doesn't seem to be answering my prayers.  It has taken me many prayers and many years to realize that those are the times His answer is "not now."

Sometimes I wonder why He is taking so long.  He said He will return, yet He hasn't.  I have to merely accept that He WILL without fail return simply because He said so.  I must just believe. 

The women who went to the tomb that morning should have done that.  They should have just believed.  He was not there for He had risen!


Hallelujah!  He has risen!