IN FOCUS - STONE ROLLED AWAY | KAIROS GLOBAL | APRIL 2019

Author:Anil Israel

Intro: Anil Israel ponders Easter – its meaning for humanity and how it transforms our lives as Christians.

“He is risen” (Mt 28:6) – this is the good news that we celebrate not only on Easter Sunday, but during every Holy Mass. “If Christ has not been raised, then our faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).

Christ is our hope. After the fall of the first Adam, “sin entered the world” (Rom 5:12). After Christ the “last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45) “destroyed death” (2 Tim 1:10), we are given “victory over sin and death” (1 Cor 15:57). Going beyond paying the price, Jesus rose from the grave and conquered death – “the wages of sin” (Rom 6:23). He paid a debt he did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay. Christ won for us the “right to enter the eternal kingdom” (2Pet 1:11) so that “whoever believes in Him, shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). 

Early Easter Sunday morning, “they found the stone rolled away from the tomb” (Lk 24:2). The stone that was sealed and guarded under human power was made to roll away by divine power. This ‘stone rolled away’ is a sign of hope, a cause of our joy – the Joy that Easter brings.

Many times, in our lives, we lose hope. We are sad and discouraged when we meet dead ends and there appears to be no way out of the mess we find ourselves in. We might have several stones in our lives, which we perceive to be obstacles or blocks that makes our hope run dry. Perhaps, these are stones that prevent the grace of God from flowing into our lives. It could be a stone of pride or a stone of anger or one of the many other so-called seven capital sins. Our risen Saviour assures us that He can cause every blocking stone to be rolled away from our life. In Christ we find our hope, in Him we ‘renew our strength’ (Is 40:31), just as scripture assures us, “For I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13).

Jesus who ordered to “take the stone away” (Jn 11:39) and brought Lazarus back to life, is today asking each one of us to “remove the stone” that we might have conveniently accepted. Today, Jesus is reminding us once again, “if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.” (Mt 21:21) The power to make the stone roll away is already at our disposal. We only need to place all our hope and trust in Him, take a leap of faith and permit Jesus to work wonders in our lives. As Christians, we are called to “walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7).

When the disciples where caught up in a storm and Jesus was asleep in the boat, they woke Him up and He commanded the wind and the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” (Mk 4:39). In Matthew 14:32, we see that when both Jesus and Peter got into the boat, the wind died down. I have come to learn that we need to invite Jesus into the boat of our life, so that He can calm the storms of our lives. We need to implore and call upon the mighty name of Jesus, to calm the wind and waves of our lives. We need to surrender our chaotic situation to the foot of the cross, for He who can create the cosmos out of chaos, can surely put things in order in our lives – things where human power is of no avail. 

Sometimes, the problem is not our situation or circumstances. The wind and the waves are not outside us but within us. At times, we try to control everything by ourselves, and when it seems to be going out of control, we press the panic button.  Scripture once again reminds us, “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). We are not the master of our own worlds, so we need not assume full control. He who brought us into being, and in whom we exist, ought to take the centre-stage. We need to put Jesus back on the throne of our lives and let him be our Lord, our Master, our Teacher. 

“This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid! Don't be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God's.” (2 Chron 20:15) The battle surely belongs to the Lord and we must let Him do His part. Our part is to ‘let go’ of the things that we have been clinging on to as our security, and ‘let Him in’. Everything that was an impediment to my relationship with my risen Saviour, we need to resolve to ‘let go’. It could be all those endless excuses from not being able to find time for prayer to self-embraced laziness. This letting go is surely not an easy walk. It is an arduous task. We cannot do it by ourselves, so we need to depend on His Grace. We need to ‘let Him in’ and cooperate with His Grace to let the stones roll away. “Lord I am nothing, I have nothing, I want nothing but the love of Jesus,” ought to be the prayer in our hearts as we pilgrim through time and space. 

God’s power to restore is greater than Satan’s power to destroy. We no longer need to be devasted and complain that we have big problems, rather we need to tell our problems that we have a bigger God. After all, “We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song” (St. Augustine).

Anil Israel works as a computer engineer and  stays in Mannheim, Germany with his wife Sunitha and their 5 children. He has been involved with Jesus Youth since 1999 and is currently the National formation coordinator in Germany.