Yesterday, I was
driving across town surfing through some radio stations when I came upon pastor
Chuck Swindoll who was preaching a sermon. Swindoll said in essence, “The stone
was not rolled away so Jesus could get out. It was rolled away so we could go in.”
That comment hung in my mind throughout the day.

Jesus is
recorded in Scripture appearing in locked rooms and moving through time and
space without hindrance. He did not need the stone to be rolled away to
resurrect. He merely stepped from this realm into eternity and back again as
easy as you or I would walk from one room in our house to the next.

We needed to
have the stone rolled away to remind us that the Jesus we serve is not another
formula for success or a list of handy life-principles to make our lives more
interesting or comfortable. He rose from the dead to tell us that if we follow
Him we will experience life beyond death in this life and in the life to come.

He is the God
who works miracles and stretches human thinking to the breaking point of
comprehension. He is Lord of all realms of existence and all things existing
within those realms. His resurrection was given to us as a gift of
recalibration that can scrub from our thinking a concept of a miracle-less,
trapped-in-our-limited-way-of-thinking-Jesus and the accompanying weakened
theology that mindset produces.

Every dead and
sorrow-ridden place in our life already has had the stone rolled away if we
look with the eyes of faith. Everything in this life has been put in subjection
to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ask the Lord to help you see with His eyes
the empty tomb of your greatest challenge. His sight will become your place of
faith.

The stone has
already been rolled away from every challenge and each heartbreaking situation
in this life if you choose to see with the eyes of faith. The gift of the empty
tomb was given to us as a reminder that nothing – no thing – can entomb Jesus
and those who call Him Lord. That is why the stone was rolled away.