EASTER – Time to Roll Away the Stone from Our Own Tombs

~  By Peggy Henrikson ~

I like to think of the death of Jesus as representing the eventual passing away of mortal strife and of the Resurrection as the inevitable realization of our spiritual Selves.

In the process of awakening, we go through the “dark night of the soul,” which is the tomb. In this tomb, however, we are not lifeless. It is the chrysalis stage, and this stage is one of constant change and growth, wherein, little by little, we allow our soul to infuse our personality.

I see the giant stone in front of the tomb as the accumulation of doubts and fears we have built up as limitations in our lives. And it represents not only our own limitations, but all those created by the mass consciousness of humanity down through the ages. Jesus simply rolled it away. His consciousness was high enough to do this in three days. Perhaps the number three represents the Body, Mind, and Spirit becoming One.

As we can't help but notice, it's taking us much longer to get rid of the stone. We've been chipping and picking at it for years! I think sometimes we feel we have to deal with each limitation, as if the stone were made up of a trillion pebbles.

There is a better way. That certainly isn't a new way, but not many people try it. This way of dispensing with the stone is to go within and practice the healing Presence of God.

New Thought teacher Ernest Holmes writes in The Science of Mind:

Within myself is that which is perfect, that which is complete, that which is divine; that which was never born and cannot die; that which lives, which is God—the Eternal Reality. Within myself is peace, poise, power, wholeness and happiness. All the power that there is and all the presence that there is, and all the life that there is, is God—the Living Spirit Almighty—and this Divine and Living Spirit is within me. It is Wholeness. It is never weary. It is never tired. It is Life. It is complete Peace. It is never afraid; It is never confused. It is always poised and peaceful. It is always in a state of perfect equilibrium. (p. 555)

We need the tomb. We need to get away from outer distractions, even if we are only creating this peaceful, quiet place in our minds. We all need to find our own “tombs” of quiet where we can allow God to dissolve the stone of limitation that has been rolled in front of our lives. We don't need to pick away at this hard rock of negative beliefs with great exertion and exasperation. A sufficient realization of the Presence of God will dissipate that stone “as mist before the sun,” as Dr. Holmes would say.

In our everyday lives, we need to trust that the Presence goes before us and makes straight the way and that our every need is met before we ask. Affirmative prayer was designed to help us get into the consciousness that allows this faith, this flow of good. But eventually, it must take us beyond words into a continual knowing—the kind of knowing that comes with feeling God's Presence as the Truth of ourselves.

I believe the ultimate message of Easter is that the soul does not die when we leave this plane of existence. But I also believe that when our stone of limitations has been “rolled away,” and we are ready to emerge from the tomb, Heaven is here and now. Thus we effect our own resurrection, helping to bring about the resurrection of the world.