Unexpected

Matthew 28: 5-9 (NIV)

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them.“Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.

 

When the women came expecting to find Jesus' broken body wrapped in the tomb, they trembled in holy reverence at the angel they saw and also out of fear that Jesus was not where they expected Him.  I can imagine their hearts stopping as they were afraid that someone had stolen His body or that something terrible had happened. There were struck by the unexpectedness of the situation, and frozen in fear. And then they received a message sent to them by God, alleviating their fears and instilling in them the confidence that their savior had risen and conquered death. I feel like so often are like the women at the tomb. We search for God in the places we expect to find in Him, in the places we want to find him and we are stricken with fear when we find the places in which we expected Him to be only empty tombs that could not contain Him. God is not a mundane God that He should be contained within the comfortable facets of the human imagination. No, rather he exceeds the limits of our Earthly expectations. He can only be found when we break  our comfortable cycles and embrace His reckless love that we cannot even begin to wrap our minds around. He is found when we recklessly run to Him despite our fears and fall at His feet to worship Him in desperate adoration. And as we come to abide in the sweet presence of our Savior, fear no longer has a grip on us because we are finally in the presence of perfect love, and perfect love casts out all fear.

 Lay down at the feet of Christ whatever fears may be paralyzing you in this moment, and embrace Him with reckless abandon. Know that He is not found in the expected and comfortable places of this world, but He is found in your brokenness and humility, when you break down the walls around your soul and let His perfect love come flooding in. Let this truth bring you peace, that you have a risen savior who has conquered your sins, conquered death, and reigns victorious.

Let Him in, and know that you are loved.