Stone.
That word is so heavy. It carries such weight. We say of things that they sink like a stone. We order stone countertops because they endure. They withstand weather and use and time. And when my mother passed, we ordered a head stone to place by her grave.
I can still remember the last time I saw her face. I was sitting in the funeral home with others as they closed her casket for the last time. When that happened, I thought to myself, “That was the last time I would ever see her face.”
I wonder if that is how Mary Magdalene felt at Christ’s tomb.
It says at the end of the Passion in Matthew that “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.” (Matthew 27:61). As they were sitting there I can imagine that the Marys sat there think that this was also the last time that they would ever see the face of Jesus. I think of them staring at that stone at the entrance of the tomb. Jesus said He would return. But they saw His death.
And stone is so heavy.
We all have stones in our lives. I can imagine that most of you reading this have lost loved ones and have laid them beneath the gravestone. The reality of death is so tangible and inescapable. But the stones in our lives aren’t always about death. Some of us struggle with sin and addiction. Perhaps our relationships are broken. These weigh on us like stones. Their weight feels so unmovable that we think that this will never change.
And inside, especially as we get older, we can feel the stoniness of our hearts. As children we are open and vulnerable. But as we encounter pain, betrayal, and loss, we steel ourselves against that pain. And slowly we turn our hearts to stone. There is a calcification that happens in our lives were we become intrenched in our own way of doing things, our own way of seeing the world. And as time goes on, we think change is impossible because our hearts have slowly become heavy, heavy stone.
But this is the place where faith means the most.
God told us ” I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
For God, nothing is impossible. Even the stones in our hearts can be transformed. And we know He has the power to do this because He came back from the dead.
This is not easy to believe sometimes. I can still feel the loss of my mother and the empty space in my heart from her death.
But I have to believe that I am going to see her again. I have to believe that one day, I will hear her voice and hold her hand.
I have to believe this because Jesus told me that this would happen. He promised that when He said, ““I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” (John 11:25). We put this verse on my mother’s headstone. That way, when we looked at the heaviness of the stone as Mary Magdalene did, we are reminded of His promise that death is not the end.
He can roll way any stone in our lives because that is what He did to that stone at His tomb. But He asks that we believe, that we trust in Him.
