Recently, my wife, Carolyn and I were relaxing one evening and discussing several things of interest to us. I am always amazed at the insight coming from her. She usually mentions some things which I have never had cross my mind. That was the case when she asked me a question. Now, you know men. We know everything. We don’t look at maps because that would imply that we do not know where we are going. We almost always have our minds made up concerning what a person is going to say even before they get through saying it. Our answer is on the way before their statement fully passes from their lips. Men are just like that. So, it puzzles us when someone, especially our wives, asks us a question for which we stumble for an answer. We try to think of something that will fit while looking confident of our answer all along. It might work from time to time but it will not work when one is asking a Biblical question. If our answer doesn’t fit the Biblical narrative well….uh-oh, we only have one option and that is to admit that you don’t fully know the answer but that you will go to the
Bible and find out. That happened to me on the particular evening I mentioned.
“Honey, let me run something by you and see what your answer is.” I agreed with the usual “informed and waiting to solve your problem” look. This is what she posed. She said: “when the women were on the way to the tomb to anoint Jesus body, how were they expecting to get inside the tomb given the heavy stone was in the way?” I was stunned for a moment because I had never thought about that before. In Mark 16 :3, it relates to us that they were thinking about getting into the tomb and didn’t know who would move the stone when it tells us, “And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone for us from the door of the sepulcher?
So, they went to anoint Jesus’s body thinking He was still there and didn’t know how to get into the tomb. They didn’t know the stone was already moved by an Angel as scripture tells us in Matthew 28:2. The Bible also tells us that the reason they were going to anoint Jesus was that they did not yet know the scripture that He would rise from the dead. When they got to the tomb the stone was moved because the Angel had moved it. It is clear that the two women clearly struck out thinking the stone was still in place and that Jesus was still in the tomb. They were hoping someone could move the stone. The Roman soldiers would not have done it because they were given orders to guard the tomb. If soldiers in Roman days failed to protect what they were to guard they were executed. They wouldn’t touch that stone. These two women were driven by their custom of anointing a body after death. They were not going to the tomb expecting the stone to be rolled away. They didn’t know what to expect but they were going anyway. They knew the whole story only after the Angels enlightened them concerning Jesus…”He is not here, He is risen.”
God always makes a way for his people. He provides for His people even before we realize we need it. The stone was already moved even while they were going to the tomb. They had no way of knowing that an Angel had moved the stone for them so they could get in to see that He was already gone. And that’s something we need to understand. The stone was not moved so Jesus could get out. It was moved so we could get in and see that He was risen!
I have had the privilege of going to see the Garden Tomb six times. It is an astounding experience even now two-thousand years later. Just think what it was like for Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome on that first Resurrection morning! If being in that tomb made the hair stand up on my body each time I visited the tomb, just think what they thought and felt. It was quite an experience for them, I am sure. Also, seeing Angels and hearing their explanation of the situation was mind blowing as well. How would you react to being able to see and converse with an Angel? It would be overwhelming. They simply did not understand or have any way of knowing the experience they were about to have as they made their way to the tomb wondering how they would get the stone moved.
If our readers ever have the opportunity to go to Israel and visit the tomb where Jesus was buried, I urge you to make that journey. As you stand in that tomb carved in the rock, you will be struck with the knowledge of the fact that, in that very room, the power of God raised Jesus from the dead so that we will never have to experience eternal death but eternal life in Heaven with Him. There is coming a day, and I believe it is not far off, when He is coming again to claim His own who have believed in Him through faith.
Yes, my wife asked me a question that stumped me for a moment. The Bible does not speak to what their thoughts were as they traveled to the tomb that morning but, God’s Word gives us all the details we need to know that Jesus is alive and soon coming to take all of His people home with Him. I pray you will be one of them.
