Good Pastime

Death's Garden

Mark 15:42-47

"Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid." (MARK 15:47)I've often wondered why Christ's first appearance happened in a garden-like cemetery and not somewhere else, say a mountaintop or the middle of a busy city or at least a crowded temple. Why didn't He make a spectacular entrance back into the land of the living, somewhere where there'd be a gathering of important people? Wouldn't these have been more effective locations to send the message that the executed young rabbi now was alive again? Yet Jesus didn't choose a busy intersection. He emerged from death in the middle of a quiet, solemn garden near an empty, smelly tomb. The garden forces us to see burial linens in a grave so that we remember just how concrete and real Christ's death was. The garden symbolizes for us, as it has for the church through the ages, a place of growth and grace, inviting us to new life through His death. It is Christ's death that made right what happened in the Garden of Eden. His empty tomb is the only way that's possible at all.INSIGHTBECAUSE OUR SAVIOR LIVES, WE ARE EMPOWERED WITH THE PRIVILEGE AND CALL AS MESSENGERS THROUGHOUT THE EARTH.READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEARJoshua 9-10 Psalm 101 Acts 26
Mark 15:42-47
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
The Burial of Jesus
42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. 45 When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. 46 So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid

YOUR EMMAUS ROADTwo disciples walk along the road disappointed, but a third traveler joins them and shares a story that changes everything.