A Year or So Ago

A year ago or so I stood and looked at a rock structure. It clearly looked like a skull. It seemed such a far away place until that day - Golgotha, the place of the skull. Our guide explained that crucifixion didn't really take place on a hill. That wasn't the style of the Romans. The people they killed were to be an example so they hung on a roadway. Everyone who passed the skull hill, and the three men hanging in front of it, would have been close to eye level with the condemned. So all those passing by Jesus in the hours He hung dying most likely spit on Him while looking Him right in the eyes. For hours the Son of God hung, dying, bleeding, suffering, and sacrificing.

A year ago or so I walked through a garden.I wasn't really sure how far... but it wasn't far. There was a hole - just barely big enough to get one person through at a time. There was a garden. Then there was a tomb. (Jn 19:41)

A year ago or so I walked into a tomb, an unfinished tomb in a garden. It was just around the corner from the rock hill that looks just like a skull. In that tomb in a garden was the most beautiful nothing I have ever seen. What I looked on that day a year ago or so was the tomb where Jesus laid. I say laid because clearly there was no one there. That tomb really is empty.

A year ago or so I sat in a garden overwhelmed. It wasn't until days later that it hit me. Every time I closed my eyes I saw one thing - white stone - tomb - nothing. Burned onto my memory is that nothing. He is not there. He is not there. It was like I just couldn't stop thinking it. He is not there. He is not there.

A year later I sat and read the accounts of those who were in the garden on the first day of that beautiful sight of nothing. He was not there.

Again in my mind today is that tomb. So I wanted to share it with you.

He is not here - He IS RISEN!