We're dazed. Grieving. Reeling from shock. Traumatized. We can only sit or kneel and stare at that tomb holding the cold remains of all that we counted on, and wonder where God has hidden Himself. Because the God we know could never have allowed this to happen. God IS good, isn't He? That isn't just an illusion we had that God exists, is it?
When we mourn our lost, dead dreams, it's easy to imagine Jesus' friends, kneeling before his tomb, staring at it, trembling in shock. Their friend, the man they loved, the one whom they'd followed night and day for three years, the great Prophet and Healer whom they hoped would be the one to save Israel, has just been brutally executed, as if he were a criminal. They'd helped to prepare him for burial, gotten his blood on their hands.
And their own religious leaders had plotted against Jesus and set him up to be executed by the Roman authorities. What a brutal destruction of their dreams, of the lives they'd hoped to lead! What a betrayal by their own religious leaders!
And why, they wonder, didn't Jesus save himself? He performed so many great miracles. Couldn't he have performed one for himself?
How close to despair they are! Anguished, they ask God why He allowed these terrible things to happen to a good, decent man, and why did he have to die just when it seemed he was on the brink of becoming their Messiah, a great ruler like King David? Someone who could have freed their country?
They, like us, would have to go back to being what they were, having what they had, trying to live without the tremendous treasure they have lost.
Those friends of Jesus had no idea how radically their lives were about to change. Just as we have no idea what God will cause to issue forth triumphant from the tomb of our lost and cold dead dreams. All we can do for now is hope. Trust that there is a God and that He may be currently silent but He isn't Missing In Action.
All we can do is silently hope in God and wait, day and night. Wait without any idea of what we're waiting for.
"...and Hope does not disappoint, because the Love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." (Romans 5:5).
This we can trust in: eventually our God Who loves us will send us a dawn, charged with promise, when the heavy stone will be lifted from our deadened hearts. When the tomb of our lost and dead dreams will be emptied. When, eyes cleared and minds electrified by a new overwhelming Light, we will rise from our knees, exultant. If we hold this promise of new life safe in our hearts, we can hold on and wait as long as it takes. Hope DOES NOT disappoint!