It was a simple story with a simple dilemma. But the answer? Not so simple.
A wonderful priest shared a story with us during an Easter homily; there was once a bunch of kids portraying the scene of the resurrection of Jesus.
One boy played Jesus, a girl played Mary, a few others played the apostles and the women rushing to the tomb. There were also a few angels and Roman soldiers.
But one little boy had a very simple part. He played the rock.
There were no lines. Only stillness, until the time he was compelled to roll away.
And while all the other kids wore costumes and learned their lines, this little boy had nothing to do but play a rock … the rock that gets rolled away from the tomb.
The teacher felt bad for this boy. She tried her best to come up with an idea for a costume, so that he could at least look like a rock. But when she ran out of ideas, she asked the boy if he wanted to paint black and gray on his face, or put on a black and gray robe.
The little boy didn’t miss a beat. He simply told his teacher: “No, I am fine. After all, I have the most important role in the play.”
“And how is that?” the teacher asked.
“I play the rock … and that means if I don’t roll away from the tomb, then Jesus can’t come to life.”
How simple.
How complicated.
How wonderful.
Jesus has come back to life. But he can’t come out and show himself through our actions and words until that rock is rolled away.
This little boy recognized how important it was for him to muster his strength, or be willing to let much stronger angels roll him away from the opening to the tomb.
To him, it was simple.
But to us, its a little more complicated. And deep.
After all, the resurrected Jesus lives in our hearts. He is there because we profess our faith, accept Him as our Lord and Savior.
But the trick for us is to find a way to let Jesus shine through our hearts, our lips, our minds, our arms and legs.
This can’t happen if we keep a huge rock in front of our heart’s tomb. That rock must be rolled away.
What is our rock? I might suggest our rocks are weighted down heavily with sin … with temptations … with idle hands and idle minds.
At times – on good days – our rocks are much lighter … easy to roll away.
Other days are not so good. Day after day of little, venial sins can begin to cloud our vision and mess with our sense of conscience. Over time, such things – compounded by a weak prayer life and an acceptance of too many gray areas of behavior – can make our rock much heavier.
With heavy rocks and heavy hearts, we keep Jesus locked in our little tombs, unable to shine through and preventing us from allowing the Lord to shine through our words and actions.
We must strive to identify the chains that are wrapped around our rocks and weigh them down.
We must work hard to control our rocks – and anything else that keeps us from freeing Christ within our minds and bodies. And most importantly, we must admit when we cannot do it ourselves … giving rise to the need to pray for help from God.
It is God who is Risen, but He is also too often kept in the tomb of our hearts.
We may not be able to move our rocks on our own. We will need to ask for God’s assistance. He will no doubt listen to those prayers.
In this season of Easter rejoicing … rest assured there will be much joy in heaven when we learn to roll away the rocks that keep Jesus away from living within us.
