The Beautiful Upset: WK6 - THU
THE WOMEN WHO WOULDN'T STOP
Mark 16:1-5 (NLT) "Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus' body. Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb... As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The women were shocked."
Grief has a strange way of narrowing your world down to the next small task. You can't think about next month or next year, you can barely think about tomorrow. But you can think about this one thing, this small act of care that needs doing. For these women, that task was anointing Jesus' body. Never mind that the sun hasn't risen yet. Never mind that there's a massive stone blocking the entrance to the tomb. Never mind that they have no plan for moving it and no real hope of getting inside. They just know someone needs to do this last tender thing for the man they loved, so they show up with their spices and their grief and their stubborn devotion.
On the way to the tomb, they're asking each other, "Who will roll away the stone?" This is a practical problem without an obvious solution. Tomb stones in that era weren't doors you could knock on, they were massive circular stones that rolled in grooved tracks. Moving one required several strong men. But these women are going anyway, trusting that somehow they'll figure it out when they get there.
My wife Cass is like this. Give her a problem that seems impossible, and instead of getting paralyzed by the size of it, she'll start with the first small step. When we were moving to California and the logistics felt overwhelming, packing, hiring movers, finding housing, new schools, new jobs, I was making spreadsheets and backup plans. She just started putting books in boxes. "We can't do everything at once," she'd say, "but we can do this right now."
That's these women. They can't bring Jesus back. They can't undo Friday. But they can bring spices. They can show up at dawn. They can figure out the stone when they get there. And when they arrive, they discover the stone has already been rolled away. Not by them. Not because of their planning. But because God was already at work while they were walking through the dark.
They enter the tomb and see a young man in white, and Mark tells us they were shocked. Of course they were shocked. They came expecting death and decay. They came prepared to anoint a corpse. Instead they find an empty tomb and a messenger who's about to tell them something their grief can't yet process.
But here's what matters: they showed up. They didn't wait until they had all the answers or a foolproof plan. They didn't let the size of the stone or the impossibility of the situation keep them away. They just kept moving forward with the small faithfulness they could offer, trusting that somehow it would be enough. And it turns out, showing up is always enough, because God meets us in the moving forward. The miracles we need don't usually happen when we're standing still, trying to figure everything out. They happen when we take the next faithful step and discover that grace has gone ahead of us, rolling away the stones we thought were immovable.
1. What "stone" feels too big for you to move right now?
2. Where is God inviting you to take the next small step anyway?
3. How have you seen faithfulness met with unexpected grace?
Mark 16:1-5 (NLT) "Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus' body. Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb... As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The women were shocked."
Grief has a strange way of narrowing your world down to the next small task. You can't think about next month or next year, you can barely think about tomorrow. But you can think about this one thing, this small act of care that needs doing. For these women, that task was anointing Jesus' body. Never mind that the sun hasn't risen yet. Never mind that there's a massive stone blocking the entrance to the tomb. Never mind that they have no plan for moving it and no real hope of getting inside. They just know someone needs to do this last tender thing for the man they loved, so they show up with their spices and their grief and their stubborn devotion.
On the way to the tomb, they're asking each other, "Who will roll away the stone?" This is a practical problem without an obvious solution. Tomb stones in that era weren't doors you could knock on, they were massive circular stones that rolled in grooved tracks. Moving one required several strong men. But these women are going anyway, trusting that somehow they'll figure it out when they get there.
My wife Cass is like this. Give her a problem that seems impossible, and instead of getting paralyzed by the size of it, she'll start with the first small step. When we were moving to California and the logistics felt overwhelming, packing, hiring movers, finding housing, new schools, new jobs, I was making spreadsheets and backup plans. She just started putting books in boxes. "We can't do everything at once," she'd say, "but we can do this right now."
That's these women. They can't bring Jesus back. They can't undo Friday. But they can bring spices. They can show up at dawn. They can figure out the stone when they get there. And when they arrive, they discover the stone has already been rolled away. Not by them. Not because of their planning. But because God was already at work while they were walking through the dark.
They enter the tomb and see a young man in white, and Mark tells us they were shocked. Of course they were shocked. They came expecting death and decay. They came prepared to anoint a corpse. Instead they find an empty tomb and a messenger who's about to tell them something their grief can't yet process.
But here's what matters: they showed up. They didn't wait until they had all the answers or a foolproof plan. They didn't let the size of the stone or the impossibility of the situation keep them away. They just kept moving forward with the small faithfulness they could offer, trusting that somehow it would be enough. And it turns out, showing up is always enough, because God meets us in the moving forward. The miracles we need don't usually happen when we're standing still, trying to figure everything out. They happen when we take the next faithful step and discover that grace has gone ahead of us, rolling away the stones we thought were immovable.
1. What "stone" feels too big for you to move right now?
2. Where is God inviting you to take the next small step anyway?
3. How have you seen faithfulness met with unexpected grace?
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