Given Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008


Sermon Title: "A Rolling Stone" given Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008
Bible passage: Mark 16: 1-8

There are some visual things we associate with Easter - dawn, a group of women carefully walking toward the tomb, a man in white with a message 'He is risen', the empty tomb. But there is a visual of the Easter story that we don't think about much. It would have been a visual that the first Christains would have thought of frequently: The Stone.

What is that stone that had been rolled over the entrance to the tomb had not been rolled away when the women arrived that morning? The whole way we relate to Christ would have been changed. That stone was a barrier that stood in the way of those faithful followers and being near the Lord.

It was such an obstacle that we hear the women asking, Who will roll away the stone for us?" But what they found when they arrived was that the power of God had rolled the stone away - had removed the barrier between them and the Lord.

Do we do that in our lives too? Do we let stones stand in the way of being near the Lord. Are you a stone collector?

The largest stone collection in the United States, amassed by one person, is in West Bend, Iowa. It was gathered over a 42 year period by Paul Dauberstein. When he died in 1934, he willed it to West Bend. Since then it has become a large tourist attraction. When asked about it, Dauberstein said, " I just can't stop. I just keep adding stones."

We may be doing this in our lives too. Adding stones of bitterness, resentment, fear, unfaith, coldness...things that stand as barriers to walking near Christ and living as He would want us to. Easter is the time to let the stone rolling power of Christ remove such stones and open the way for you to walk in a new direction.

Let Easter be the day, or the season to invite the stone rolling power of the Risen Christ to come into your life ...... remove barriers .... and make it possible for you to walk nearer the Lord. To walk in the newness of the new season. To have within you the renewal of Christ. Truly, Christ the Lord is Risen Today!

Devin R. Jones, Pastor of St. John's Church.  Cappeln, MO
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