The Stone They Couldn’t Move

The women had a problem.

Not a theological problem. Not a philosophical problem. A practical one.

They had spent the Sabbath waiting. Waiting with grief. Waiting with questions. Waiting with aromatic spices and perfumes they had carefully prepared for the body of Jesus.

Then, before dawn, they set out for the tomb.

Somewhere along the path, reality set in.

“Who will roll away the stone for us?” (Mark 16:3)

It was a reasonable concern. The stone was large. They didn’t have the strength to move it themselves.

Everything they intended to do depended on getting past that obstacle.

I can’t help but wonder how much of the walk was consumed by that single problem. Did they discuss possible solutions? Did they hope someone would be nearby to help? Did they simply keep walking because turning back wasn’t an option?

What strikes me is that they kept going even though they didn’t have an answer.

And when they arrived, the problem that had occupied their minds was already solved.

The stone had been rolled away.

But that wasn’t the real surprise.

The tomb was empty.

The women came expecting to minister to a dead Savior. Instead, they were about to encounter the reality of a risen Lord.

How often do I live exactly like those women?

I spend so much energy worrying about the stone.

I focus on the obstacle I can see. The bill that needs to be paid. The healing still in process. The diagnosis. The uncertainty. The closed door. The unanswered questions.

I rehearse solutions. I lose sleep over possibilities. I carry the weight of problems that haven’t even arrived yet.

Meanwhile, God may already be at work on the very thing that worries me most.

The women discovered that the stone was never the issue. By the time they arrived, God had already handled it.

What they could never have imagined was that something far bigger was happening. While they were focused on access to the tomb, God was rewriting history.

Their concern was legitimate. Their grief was real. But their perspective was limited by what they could see.

Mine often is too.

Sometimes I arrive at the place I’ve been dreading only to discover that God has already gone ahead of me. The obstacle I feared has been moved. The door has opened. The provision has appeared. The situation wasn’t as difficult as I imagined.

And sometimes the greater miracle is that God is doing something I wasn’t even looking for.

This week we went to a funeral at a country church… with lots of stairs… which I was concerned about because they are difficult for me to handle. Upon arrival, we were invited to use the back door we could access using a ramp. What we didn’t know was that the door opened to the front of the church… totally packed out with guests… the family sitting in the front row… with an empty “family” row directly behind them. The family invited us to sit behind them in the empty row. We discovered later that guests entering the back were not able to even get in the building.

What was totally amazing in God‘s plan in all of this was that it placed Donna right behind a family member who needed Donna’s comfort and strength during the funeral. Donna was able to lean forward and place her hand on her through most of the funeral to give her comfort.

The women went to the tomb carrying spices.

They left carrying hope.

They went expecting to honor the dead.

They left as witnesses to life.

The next time I find myself consumed by the stone in front of me, I want to remember those women on the road to the tomb. They walked with unanswered questions and arrived to find that God had already solved the problem they were worried about.

And beyond that solution was a surprise so much greater than they could have imagined.

Maybe the same is true for us.

Maybe the stone isn’t the story.

Maybe what God is doing beyond the stone is.