Inside the Tomb

When I was a kid, there was one thing that my dad always insisted upon on Easter morning, and it had nothing at all to do with eggs or candy or bunny rabbits. He would come into my room and rouse me from sleep, tell me to get dressed and we would then head to a community-wide sunrise service. I know that many of you are thinking ... what's the big deal about a sunrise service ... lots of folks go to sunrise services on Easter morning. It's not that we always went to the sunrise service that made it unusual or special ... it was where the service was held that made it a memory that has stayed with me for all these years. The sunrise service was held in a cemetery, on the part of the grounds that was named The Garden of Gethsemane. People from all across the city would gather and listen to a pastor deliver a short message, and then the sounds of hundreds of voices united in singing How Great Thou Art would fill the rolling hills of the cemetery.

Each time I travel back to Tennessee, I always go to visit the graves of my mom, dad and brother. And each time I turn into the drive of the cemetery, I look to my left and see The Garden of Gethsemane and think of those many Easter mornings when I stood holding Mom and Dad's hands at the sunrise service. And as I stand at my family's graves, I remember the words of my dad ... "Someday, there will be an Easter like no other. Someday, all these graves are gonna open up ... someday ... and what a glorious day that will be."

I didn't appreciate Daddy's words back then the way I do now ... now I think a lot about heaven, about the Rapture of the church, about eternity. I think about those graves opening up ... I think about the triumphant return of Jesus. I think about the time when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I think about an Easter like no other. And I wonder ... I wonder what it was like for my Lord inside the tomb before He rose on the third day. And I wonder what happens when we die and are in our own graves. And I wonder when the Easter like no other will come.

After my mom passed away, I traveled back home a few months later and one of the things I did on that trip was to purchase a burial plot close to my mom, dad and brother's final resting places. It's down the hill just a bit from them, under a large oak tree ... a good place, I think, to wait should I leave this life before the Lord returns.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, the day the world celebrates the resurrection of God's only Son, Jesus. I don't know about you, but I sure am glad that He didn't stay inside the tomb. Eternally glad.