Who Will Move the Stone?

Background: Mark 16:1-6

I thoroughly enjoyed studying geography as a child in school. I remember thumbing through the textbook and seeing photographs of places around the world that I never thought I’d see in person.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I traveled with friends throughout Great Britain. On our first day there, I was able to stand in awe, with far too many other travelers, beneath the sarsen stones of Stonehenge. The enigmatic prehistoric monument’s towering rocks visually dominated the landscape, far more massive than I imagined as a child.

Scientists have long known who moved the stones. Only recently did they figure out how the stones were moved and from where they came. A group of scientists from the University of Brighton tracked them down to an area called the West Woods in the county of Wiltshire, about 15 miles north of the Stonehenge.

Moving such massive stones such a great distance is an impressive achievement of human ingenuity. However, Easter tells us a far more impressive story of a stone that was moved just a few feet.

For Christians, the approach of the Easter season brings a heightened sense of awareness of the incredible gift of God’s grace evidenced by Jesus’ voluntary and sacrificial death on the cross. We serve a living savior by virtue of God delivering Jesus from the tomb.

Why is it so hard for some to believe in Jesus as Lord and savior when it feels so natural to me? When I read again this week Mark’s account of the resurrection of Jesus, the answer dawned on me in a frantic question posed by a woman gripped by sorrow.

Jesus had been crucified and buried in a borrowed tomb. By custom and to the relief of the religious leadership, Jesus’ friends and disciples rolled a massive stone into the trench dug just outside the entrance to the tomb. With a thud and a cloud of dust, they sealed it shut. To open the tomb again would take extreme effort.

On the morning of the third day after his death, Mark tells us that Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome brought the necessary spices to finish the burial process. As they walked to the tomb, still deeply in mourning, one of them stopped in her tracks when a random thought crystalized in her brain. She called in frantic distress to the others,

“Who will move the stone from the entrance of the tomb?”

With the light of a new day breaking on the horizon, it dawned upon them that they, alone, would be unable to roll the stone from its buried position. They would be unable to finish tending to the body of Jesus.

You know the story, though. God took care of that need. He rolled the stone away to allow a risen Jesus to leave behind his folded grave clothes and exit into the light of a new day. As the angel sitting by the tomb told the women,

“You’re looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen!

“He is risen!” Those words stand as the cornerstone of our faith. “He is risen, indeed!

I’ve read that story every year since I was a child. Every year. Not once in all those years did I give more than a flicker of thought to the stone. Until now. Let me share three things.

First, it occurs to me that at one point in my life, the stone of ignorance and indifference sealed the tomb of my heart. I could feel the tug of the Holy Spirit on my life, but for me to see Jesus as the risen Lord, someone moved the stone. My parents. My family. My Sunday School teachers. My pastor. They moved the stone. Because they did the heavy lifting, Jesus became real to me. Alive in my heart. My risen Lord. I am eternally grateful.

Second, there remains a heavy stone on the tomb of the hearts of those for whom Easter means nothing but eggs and chocolate bunnies. The stone that seals the tomb comes in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps it is a stone of rebellion against the faith of their parents.

For others, their hearts remained blocked by the stones of despair and discouragement. Spiritual blindness. Fear. Impatience. Greed. Envy. Selfishness. Whatever its origin, these stones prevent them from accepting Christ as savior? Keeps them from seeing the risen Lord.

You and I have the burden of moving the stone. Through our witness. Through our words. Through our lives. Only when we move the stone can they see Easter through a different lens. Only then do they have a chance to feel the soothing salve of God’s grace.

There was one final thought that came to my mind. For those of us who have experienced our personal Christ…for those redeemed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus…the story of the cross and resurrection is a happy ending to a tragic story. One so familiar that we take it for granted. When the miraculous gift of Easter becomes ordinary and routine…when we let the stone roll back and block the tomb again and again, we forget that the happy ending is really the beginning.

If you are anything like me, there have been times in your life when you let the stone roll back until it settles heavily in its slot, sealing the entrance to the tomb and hiding us for a time from the face of the Jesus Christ. If we found our way back to him, it’s because someone again had to move the stone. Parents. Family. Sunday School teachers. Pastors. Friends. They came to my rescue time and time again.

The faithfulness of those who moved the stone for me encourages me to do the same for any struggling Christian friend.

There is some Christian brother or sister you know today who is struggling through the difficulties of life to see again the risen Lord. From the depths of their despair they cry out, “Who will move the stone?”

When that opportunity comes to us, I pray that we will dig our feet into the soil, wedge our shoulders against the cold stone and push.