Running

Today is Easter. Today we celebrate the very pinnacle of our faith, the resurrection of Christ. What a glorious day that gives us all hope. The awesomeness and divine power displayed in the resurrection of God's Son is hard to express in words. Yet, this morning, as we read John's account of the most important event in history, I had to laugh. Wait a minute, before you cast me off as a heretic, hear me out. As we stood in church and read John 20 it stood out to me that twice in the passage John points out that he beat Peter in a race to the tomb. I had to laugh. Sorry. But it just struck me funny that right in the middle of retelling the story by the inspiration of the Spirit, John feels the need to point out that he "outran Peter and reached the tomb first" (v.4). Isn't that funny? Well, to me it was. Why the need to point that out? It's like John was saying, "So Peter and I started to the tomb to go see if Mary's story was true, and, oh, by the way, I outran Peter and got there first..." I've been thinking about this today. Why the interjection? I can't really say for sure because I'm not John, I can only give my own commentary. To me, though, it speaks of the humanness of the resurrection. These are real people involved in this story. They're not made up! We all know about and focus on the divine power of the resurrection. But, there's also the human side, the finite side to the story. Christ rose again to give us new life. To give us His life. To give John new life. The guy who could outrun Peter any day of the week. Christ, the Divine Son of God died and rose again for human beings, even competitive guys like you and me and John. He did what we couldn't do ourselves because we are mere mortals. Humans who are competitive and pacifist, philanthropists and selfish, over-achievers and under-achievers, moral and immoral...human. He rose again to give life to us ALL. Thanks John for bragging about your race to the tomb. Thanks Jesus for giving me, a mere human, Your life.
Duane