It’s 4 days after Resurrection Sunday.  We’ve stood before the flower covered cross and marked this day in our lives.  We’ve given thanks for this life we have in our risen Christ.  We’ve eaten Easter dinner and candy.  We’ve even made Easter candy cookies.

This week my devotional book has me reading the events and days leading up to Christ’s death and resurrection as well as his appearances to the disciples afterward.  I find it odd because I made that journey last week with countless other believers on the way to the empty tomb.  There must be a reason but what could it be?

Every Christmas morning after the last present is unwrapped my husband declares, “Well Christmas is over.”  No, the journey has only begun.  The birth of the Savior leads us to Maundy Thursday and his arrest; Good Friday and his death; Easter morning and the empty tomb.  The empty tomb signifies it is never over.  The resurrection signals to us second chances at eternal life, third chances, infinite opportunities to choose life.  The only thing ending those opportunities is the death of our bodies.

It’s 4 days after Resurrection Sunday.  Are you changed?  Are you living in Christ’s Light?  Marcus Dods writes in Footsteps in the Path of Life:

“God’s purpose had ever been one and indivisible – declared to men in various ways, a hint here, a broad light there, now by a gleam of insight in the mind of a prophet, now by a deed of heroism in king or leader, through rude symbolic contrivances and through the tenderest of human affections and highest human thoughts.  God had been making men ever more and more sensible that his one purpose was to come closer and closer into fellowship with them, and to draw them into a perfect harmony with him.”

God has been pursuing all of humanity from the beginning.  Sometimes people drew near, sometimes not.  When Jesus declared, “It is finished” upon the cross, people thought he was done; the movement was done; their aggravation was done.  But they were wrong.  You can pack up the decorations and eat all the candy, but forgiveness is still here.  The flowers on the cross outside the church can wither and die but love still stands.  You can bake cookies with the abundant Easter candy and eat them, but eternal life in the resurrected Savior never runs out.  You see, God has gone to the greatest of lengths to pursue us so we can be one with our Creator and our Savior for eternity.

It’s 4 days after Resurrection Sunday.  I sit in the empty tomb.  I am in the Light of Christ.  I claim eternal life.  I am changed.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,  but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:  ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”  Then they remembered his words.

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.  It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.  But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.  Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.  He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?  Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.  And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”  They gave him a piece of broiled fish,  and he took it and ate it in their presence.

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you:Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,  and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.  I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

                                                                                          Luke 24:1-12, 36-49