Once you have been under a yoke you never want to go back. I spent 7 years in graduate school getting my Ph. D. in Physics. The thought of being in school brings back to me a certain queasy feeling: the dread of a coming exam, the deadline of an assignment looming, the feeling that you could always study more, work harder. Truly there is an unseen yoke that colors all of your life, a guilty subconscious voice that says, “I should be studying.” It feels like being under a curse. The empty tomb speaks to me about setting captives free. Finally, the curse of death was removed. When you graduate, you never want to go back under that yoke again!
When I look into the inky blackness of the Garden Tomb I imagine Jesus standing up, light streaming from him as he carefully removes and folds the grave clothes. His broken body is restored. Some marks remain, but the flesh is new, the pain is gone. He is whole and powerful. He walks through walls. He calls the dead to life and the tombs burst open. They walk about Jerusalem with him. He talks to his disciples, restores Peter, eats fish, allows Thomas to touch him. The scars are there, but the yoke is forever gone.
Freedom is hard to understand when you have been enslaved. What does it mean to live eternally? Where did Jesus go? Why am I still afraid? Don’t I really believe?
It took several years to stop having the “cold sweat” dreams of waking up late for an exam and feeling uneasy about relaxing and enjoying life. The vague echoes of trauma stay with you. I had anger for an unreasonable advisor that I had to leave. It took time to work through and forgive, so that the black cloud would not descend whenever I thought about him. I have an aversion to ever being in that situation again. Then I worked in industry for Kodak for 20 years. A different kind of slavery, but still a yoke. I loved my job, but during the first few months after my Kodak career, I was confused and felt strangely tense when I awakened. Another form of post traumatic stress. You mean I get to decide what I do when I wake up?
We are still under the death penalty, but we have been offered a pardon. We still look around and see dead bodies, lifeless husks. Jesus stood up again, on this earth, proclaiming that what we believed was the end, was not, it is a lie. There is a new beginning.
Now we live in the uncomfortable tension between what those estranged from God believe, what our eyes see, and what our Savior has done. The yoke is gone, but the mind and heart and spirit are left in conflict. My mind rejoices in the light shining from within the Garden Tomb. The heart, does it dare believe? Can the emotions catch up to the reality that the yoke of death is truly removed?
When I die I will be ushered into the presence of my Lord. Should I even call this death? Jesus often referred to death as “sleep”. I don’t fear sleeping. I trust I will awaken. Do I suffer and experience pain and agony of death first, or will He simply remove me? If I do feel pain, is this an opportunity to join the sufferings of Jesus and glorify my Father in heaven? What is this feeling of lightness that lifts me?
Freedom from the oppressive yoke. The dread is gone. The constant looming oppressive reality of death gives way to an abiding joy. My tomb will never be full. I am forgiven. Jesus is alive.
Atheist to Elder 