While it was still dark. . .

John 20:1-18
While it was still dark

When Judas left that Passover meal

John tells us “It was night…”
He went out into darkness – and that dark
Surrounded him in all the emptiness
And treachery of betrayal.

When Jesus hung upon his cross

“Darkness came over the land…”
And into that darkness my Saviour cried
Out to God, using the psalmist’s words
And shouting his desolation.
It was dark!
O how dark I cannot imagine
When Christ looked into the agony
Of that cross – and yet –
Yet had a hope set before him
That includes me – and in the darkness
Works a wonder of redemption
That my dark soul cannot fathom.

It was a dark day that followed;

Black with the disappointment
And confusion of those who loved him
And could not conceive what he had done.
Dark with uncertainty.
Dark with recrimination.
Dark with a sense of failure.
Dark without knowing what he had promised.
O such a darkness!

Yet – in that same darkness

Dragging her unwilling love
To the place of burial –
Ready to take on any who challenged
Her right to minister to her dead Lord.
She comes and dimly sees
The evidence of all the hope of glory
In the darkness of the Easter morning –
The stone rolled away!

And is it desecration?
Has he whom Mary loved been stolen
From the tomb, and now beyond her
Devoted ministry to a dead Jesus?

Who in the darkness of that Easter morning

Had crept in and stolen him? Who?

And in the darkness just before dawn

She stands and cries at the futility of her visit
And looks in again – and this time sees
The shining people speaking of his life.

Questions in the gloom – and challenges

To her – why she cries –
And turning round sees Jesus standing there
Transformed by tears into the gardener,
And eliciting a bold intent to claim his body
And in darkness show how much
She loves him and would serve. . .

And in the darkness and confusion

In the tears and clear determination
Mary asserts her intention
To get him –

But he speaks her name

And suddenly the darkness is no more

...
And, out of darkness Mary speaks
In adoration of her risen Lord
And witness to his living self.

“I who knew darkness and despair

I who loved him and found him gone
I who was coming to his tomb
I have seen Jesus!

And the dark is finally dispelled

And all illuminated by his life
Hear me who from the darkness
Found the risen Jesus and the saving light.

He lives!”

David A. Green Easter 2011

12 Stanley Grove, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, BS23 3EB

Tel: 07092 102129 - Fax: (123) 456 7892

Email: david@davidagreen.com