"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."
This hit me like a ton of bricks. These women had resigned themselves to the fact that their dear Jesus had been killed. He had tasted death irrevocable. They were following custom and culture by tending to Jesus' body, but I sense a tenderness in Luke's words born out of love not just duty. The women loved Jesus and learned to receive his love and now he was gone. All they could do now is learn how to cope with the dark reality and try to bring it a little beauty and fragrance to it even if the smell of death still lingered in the air.
What hit me is, that I thought that I would have to do exactly what these women were doing if I followed God with everything I have. I had forgotten about the resurrection. I realized that I had wrongly been believing that God would sentence me to a life of coping and trying to find the beauty in a less than good situation. Granted sometimes we all go through dark seasons, but that is what they are... seasons.
Sometimes God allows struggles and trials, but in his love he could never impose on me a life of drudgery and leave me grasping for his goodness.
I am leaning to embrace this God of love that did not leave his son in the grave only to be adorned with spices and tears, but the God who fulfilled his promises of old and raised Christ from the dead. I am encountering a God who didn't stop there but "raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus," (Ephesians 2:6). I am discovering the God Paul knew when he say "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:23). I am getting to know the Jesus who reminds us "Suppose your son asks for bread. Which of you will give him a stone? Or suppose he asks for a fish. Which of you will give him a snake? Even though you are evil, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:9-11).
This is the God I want to serve.