Scarily alive

Christ the Lord is risen today:

Hallelujah! Charles Wesley

 

Read Mark 16:1—7

‘He has been raised.’ ‘He is not here.’ ‘He is going ahead of you.’ These words are for me tonight. Jesus is alive in the most literal, supernatural way. He’s not just a good idea given a new lease of life. He’s not just a resolve on the part of Christians that they’re going to carry on despite appearances. No, he’s alive enough to terrify the women. They flee the tomb, just at the report of it. He’s scarily alive. Actually alive. And always ahead of me. So I can lay down my head tonight and pray that he will encounter me and lead me tomorrow, literally.

Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the tomb, who left behind the place of your burial and the clothes you were buried in, you were frighteningly alive. I have feared death. I have not been able to tough my way through it, even the honest thought of it. All my life I have feared to die. And I prepare myself for sleep tonight. And hope that I shall sleep soundly and blot out all the matters of the day that will disturb me. Sleep will be sweet, if I get it. But you awaken me. By your resurrection you call me to life. To alertness to your life, to an energy and a vitality. To a new future. To witness. To see you, hear you, meet you, follow you. Not to my sentimental daydreams or night-time dreams but to where you are to be met. Oh, let me find in you, in your life and in your leading, in following you, and in obeying you, may I find my own richest treasure and my own fullest life.