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Have you ever experienced an argument between your mind and your eyes? I suppose it happens to any of us now and then. We’ll see something, but it takes a second or two longer for our brain to catch up to what our eyes have just seen. 

Seeing is so important to believing most things. Then there’s faith. Faith calls on us to believe that which we haven’t altogether seen, based in part on what others have seen. 

The beauty of the Easter message hinges on some powerful words, “I have seen the Lord!” we hear Mary Magdalene say in John 20:1-18. With those words of testimony,  our faith would never have to be the same.  We celebrate the hope and the power, the grace and possibility today found in an empty tomb and a risen Christ!

One of the beloved songs of our faith is “Were You There?” As the verses progress, it asks of those critical days, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the cross? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?”

But, for today’s purposes, there is a longer version that also asks, “Were you there when the stone was rolled away?” Well, none of us were there.  But in John 20, we have this victorious testimony from one who was.  

We’ll often focus our Easter energy on the two men who rushed to the tomb and went inside. For some reason, I have always gotten a kick out of the younger man, John, outsprinting Peter on the way. What a detail to put in the story.  

But here now is Mary Magdalene. Tradition has spread some unsubstantiated notions about her. This claim to fame might be one of the best things we can remember her for. It was Mary Magdalene who first saw our risen Lord and heard his voice that powerful day.

Have you ever failed to recognize someone, even though you knew them well? Mary was not expecting to see Jesus there. We could spend more time than it merits trying to figure out why she didn’t know who he was. After all, last she heard, Jesus was dead.

One of the gifts of grief is a period of shock. It insulates us from the brunt of the pain.  Maybe Mary was still a little in shock. Or, maybe, since his body appeared earlier to have been stolen, the last person Mary thought she would encounter was Jesus.   

If you have ever cried until you couldn’t see through your tears, you might know where Mary was coming from on this. I wonder what you’re afraid of this Easter?  

I wonder what has you so wound up that you’d have a hard time believing it if someone said to you, “Don’t be afraid.” Much less, if someone made you a promise that simply sounds too good to be true?  

I wonder this Easter what kind of fear has taken up residence in you that holds you back? Holds you down.Makes it where you just can’t keep up in life’s foot races that seem to happen all the time these days?  

I wonder what you have grieved that is so heavy, so big, that the grief has, as one broken-hearted person put it recently, begun to feel something an awful lot like fear? I honor your fear, your pain, your hesitancy enough that I don’t want to make light of it.  

My problems are real when they visit. So are yours. But, I wonder who needs to hear on the day of our Easter victory, “Do not be afraid,” and take it seriously?  

I wonder who is so tired of being hurt, so tired of being apprehensive, so tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop that they’ve almost gotten used to living that way?  And, the Easter hope proclaims to Mary, among so many other great messages, “Don’t be afraid.”  

God wants to do a new thing. God wants a new chapter, a new hope for you. Easter represents, among so many other things, the opening of a season of hope for all. God was, once and for all, providing new life.

It’s Eastertide now. I don’t know about you, but I have heard from one who saw the Lord! “I have seen the Lord!” she said. Then, she proclaimed that good news for all to hear. We proclaim it again this week. I have to say, I feel better for it.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.