Saturday 30 March 2013

The Tomb is Empty.... am I?

On this night of the beautiful Easter vigil liturgy, I felt so close to God.  I know He lives in me and in Him I live and move and have my being. Tonight I had a wonderful sense of my own rebirth -- that initially happened at 3:30 AM on Saturday, October 11, 1975, when I first experienced my awakening to knowing God; yet I often still have epiphanies, or mini-rebirths, or thin places that change and enliven me.

I had one tonight while progressing in the line to the Eucharistic feast.  The thought came,

"The Tomb is empty... am I?"  

I wrestled with that question as I stared at the dark stained glass window of Christ on the cross. I wondered if it is such an elementary question that everybody innately knows how to be empty so they can be filled with God and maybe I'm the only one who is confused about how to be empty.

I shut down the thought to participate as fully as possible in being thankful for Christ's shed blood, broken body and resurrection. The joy was overwhelming and I wanted to dance and twirl and throw my arms out and embrace all the wonderful life God has bestowed. Knowing I can twirl and dance before the Lord (or dance with the Lord) at home, I restrained my exuberance and approached this holy day with proper decorum exteriorly while my spirit was leaping inside me celebrating this marvelous, mystical holy day.  I couldn't stop the ear to ear grin or the lone tear of joy that escaped.

Back at my seat, I held my prayer cross and thought-talked to God.  Then I thought on the question once again.

"The tomb is empty.... am I?"

Jesus died for our sins and to show us how to live.
Romans 6 tells us when we were baptized that we died in Him so we can live in Him - can live His life, kingdom life, eternal life -- now.

Jesus rose; but no man or woman saw Him; they first saw the empty tomb.
The tomb is empty... am I?

When the tomb was empty, then Mary saw Him in the garden and mistook him for a humble, loving gardener.
When I am empty, then others will see the humble, loving Christ in me.

I want to be empty.

I don't know how to be empty.  I want to know.  I presume it's like most things: grace.

Thank God for grace.
Thank God for the empty tomb.
Thank God for answering prayers.
Thank God for faith - I believe He will direct me to deeper emptying.

The two scripture passages below spoke to me as I typed this blog entry. Yes, it is grace that empties my inner tomb of death and selfishness that would hold me back from a fuller life in Christ.




Galatians 2: 16-21

(The Message)


16    We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it - and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.
17    Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous.
18    If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.
19    What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man.
20    Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21    I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.


Galatians 5: 13-26

(The Message)


13    It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows.
14    For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom.
15    If you bite and ravage each other, watch out--in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
16    My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness.
17    For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.
18    Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
19    It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness;
20    trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits;
21    the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.
22    But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard--things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,
23    not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.
24    Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good--crucified.
25    Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.
26    That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.
 

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