Early this morning my sister walked out of her bathroom and found my Momma's sage green, chenille blanket in a wadded pile on the bed. My nephew had, apparently, been snuggling in Granny's blanket before hopping in the shower.
The sight stopped my sister in her tracks. This was the same blanket that had followed our Momma through several agonizingly painful hospital stays. We had tucked, retucked, smoothed, and removed this blanket no less than a thousand times before we finally packed it into a recyclable Publix bag along with a handful of other common items our mother would never use again.
Upon seeing the sight, my sister texted me a picture along with a caption, "She has risen."
Her text spoke to an incomprehensible joy as God was clearly reminding us both that there would be no more torturous hospital stays. No more cold nights. No more fevers that needed to break. No more seeking to find comfort in an earthly covering. "No more" because of another set of glorious grave clothes found on an Easter morning long ago.
Imagine Peter's face when he saw the empty tomb, nothing left, but a pile of linens.
"Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed."
Did Peter touch the linens or merely stand in humble adoration and awe? Who's to say? But one thing is certain. Those empty grave clothes changed everything.
You know the rest of the story, right? Shortly after, two women, looking for the body of Jesus, are approached by two men in dazzling garments who speak these unforgettable words, "Why look for the living among the dead? He's not here. He has Risen!" Oh, how those three beautiful words made all the difference!
And yet, another three words have me perplexed. I have always understood "among the dead" to mean the grave, but recently I shared with a friend that maybe we (in our mortal bodies) have actually been the dead ones all along (dying daily), and, like in the movie the Sixth Sense, we just don't realize it until the rolling credits of our earthly lives have come to an abrupt halt.
And perhaps the ones who have gone on to glory, like my Momma, are the only ones who are actually fully alive.
It's worth considering. Yes, our souls are eternal, but to put it bluntly, our earthly bodies and worldly possessions are only one Publix bag away from extinction. And in light of this knowledge, I long to spend every appointed hour I have left in this earthly vessel pointing others to Our Risen Savior in the same subtle way my Momma always did.
She was so right. The best really is yet to come.
Thanks for the Easter reminder, Momma.
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