Very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, (the women) went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.
Rocks are a hot commodity! I'm not talking pebbles and peagravel. I'm talking boulders. Refrigerator big chunks of stone. The price tag? Well, let's just say they're not cheap. But won't a shapely stone look fantastic in your yard, garden, or playground? A rock to fit your landscaping needs is for sale right now. You might even consider a special monolith for your living room or den. Believe it or not, ornamental rock sales now net in the millions of dollars annually. Many of these granite gems are harvested from 23,000 boulderrich acres in the Sierra Nevada foothills, shipped to anyone willing to pay the price to enjoy an uncommon stone trophy.
Oakland, California artist Kim Turos makes it her business to locate just the right boulder for your needs. Says Kim, "There's a calming permanence when you see that weight sitting there." (1) Did we read that right? "A calming permanence?" Big rocks as relaxation therapy?
The troupe of ladies we read about in our text from Mark's Easter story confronted a big rock. It hardly relaxed them. There was indeed a permanence. This rock trophy was a monument to the Enemy's power of destruction and death.
"Who shall roll away the stone for us?" The Rock blocked entrance to the tomb, denying access to Jesus. To the women on this mournful sunrise journey to the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, the Rock was profoundly disturbing. The Rock, soon to be the anchor of their resurrection faith, was at that moment a bitter and unyielding witness to death's power. The Rock was a symbol of death's relentless, stubborn pursuit of humankind.
Even Jesus? Yes. Even Jesus. Jesus, Lord of Life, was dead. Jesus, too, walked through the valley of TZALMAVET, "the shadow of death" (Psalm 23:4). The Rock was rolled to the entrance of the borrowed tomb. All light, all hope, was shut off. That stone bore testimony to the permanence, the finality, the changelessness of death. The Rock guarded the grave's blackness, preserved the crypt's bleakness.
Death ruled. All bowed before King Crypt. Its horrible shadow was lengthened to cover even Jesus. Or at least, so it would have seemed to the women that first Easter morning. Had death not taken into its rocky jaws even the Lord whom they had heard proclaim, "I am the resurrection and the life?" The Rock of Death. Menacing. Threatening. Ominous. Unmovable. "Who shall roll away the stone for us?"
"That question gathers up the mournful enquiry of the whole universe. (These women) seem to have put into language the great sigh of universal manhood, ˜Who shall roll away the stone for us?'" (2)
Philosophy has joined the quest to peer beyond the Rock for some hint of hope, some glimmer of light. Religion has ventured to penetrate the dark empire with light. But the Rock survives, a relentless obstruction to peace.
Cults of every hue have come and gone, attempting to shake death's heavy stone from its moorings. Some of these cults, such as the mass suicide of thirtynine people in the "Heaven's Gate" cult, have left tragedy in their wake, proving rather than negating death's power.
Some rich celebrities I read about recently, of much more secular mind than to bother with cults, are not without their own attempts to rock the Rock. Some have even had their remains frozen in cryostate, to be thawed when our scientific knowledge has sufficiently advanced to cure their disease. Yes, even science and technology join the crusade to roll the awful stone from the crypt's door.
Despite predictions of a day of victory when the enemy shall have been defeated, death always seems to win. The Rock always is rolled into place, bringing fearful darkness and awesome permanency. The Rock has not been movednot by science, not by money, not by philosophers and not by religion. No amount of skill can seem to budge it from its legitimate birth. No amount of technowizardry has been able to conquer this cornerstone of Satan's grim castle.
The women were thinking to themselves that the stone was large. And they were more right than they knew. From death, from the Rock, there is no escape.
One of last year's most successful movies was titled, THE ROCK. Its setting is Alcatraz, the famous federal prison in San Francisco Bay standing on twelve acres of solid rock. Because of this startling physical feature, the prison was known as The Rock.
As the movie opens, The Rock is more of a harmless pebble than a large stone. The prison, shut down in 1963, remained open now only as a tourist attraction for the curious. Children visit there on school outings. Tourists are lead up and down the once foreboding cellblocks, as they hear guides make the claim that there was never a successful escape from The Rock.
Untrue. One man, the hero of the movie, played by Sean Connery, had in fact been the only one to escape, many years earlier.
The Rock is about to see action once more. A heavily armed terrorist group takes over the former prison with chemical weapons capable of taking out the entire coast of California. These terrorists take the tourists as hostages, locking them up in the very cellblocks they had come to see. Now they really get a feel of what it was like to be locked up in The Rock.
That's where the hero comes in. This one man who had escaped from The Rock many years earlier, this one victor over The Rock's boast of total victory, must be found. He must break back into The Rock to foil their evil plan and rescue the people, escorting them to safety.
It's not a bad analogy. Death's ominous Rock has been conquered by but one. The Rock's defeat renders death more a pebble than a huge stone. Yet, despite that victory, we are still hostages in The Rock's grip. Despite that victory The Rock of death remains fearful, bleak, mysterious, and scary. And now, the one victor, even Jesus, who had broken The Rock's power years before, must come to us, foil the enemy's plan, and escort us out of this place of death.
I asked the question a few moments ago. Why have a rock in your living room? Well, you must admit that a rock would make an uncommon trophy. A trophy of God's grandest victory. "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
Maybe Kim Turos was right. Huge rocks do have a "calming permanence" about them when we look at the Rock with Easter eyes. The stone, very large, has already been rolled away. The horrible Rock of death is now but a trophy of Christ's victory. The cornerstone of the enemy's grim and horrible castle has been toppled. The LORD lives! Blessed be my Rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation! (Psalm 18:46)
(1) "Why On Earth Do So Many People Collect Big Rocks?" by G. Pascal Zachary, in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, 1966 (precise date unknown).
(2) "The Stone Rolled Away," a sermon by Charles H. Spurgeon in THE TREASURY OF THE BIBLE, Volume 3, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, page 409.
This sermon is by Siegfried Johnson.