Laughing All the Way Home

Death is frightening. It comes as a thief to steal away our life's breath, our existence, our loved ones and everything that signifies hope. Death is our enemy because we were meant to be forever in love with life. In the first garden that had sheltered us, protected us, and so delighted us, we were allowed to walk lovingly with the Life-giver, the Lord God who created us, until in our desire to listen to another voice and know more, be more, and have more, we forfeited our right to life.
So Jesus entered a different garden to face this terrible foe. The conflict, as the song says, raged within him, around him, and through him for he had to decide whether or not to die his own singular death. It was all he needed to do to free us and return to us the hope of eternity with the Life-Lover. There were questions we can only imagine. Was death such a price to pay for another? Would there be any value in this sacrifice? Could he show us what lay beyond the final blackness? And then there were the millions of griefs to bare...the sorrow of broken promises, the fragmented humanity, the pitiful fruits of disobedience. True knowledge broke his heart to pieces. Then it was time. Once to face the judgement hall, once to see the scorn, once to feel the hatred of hearts bearing no compassion or shame, Jesus went as a man with a boulder on his back. He did not run or flee; he climbed, he stumbled and he pulled his tortured and bloodied body through the streets and up a hill as those choking in death's grip looked on, unaware of the offering's purpose. And there were more questions.

What good was goodness if the world only trampled it to bits? Why would they kill what brings them to life? Why did they hate love?
Until the third day, the answers were a deafening silence as the onlookers returned to their homes thinking that what they had known of one so different, so special, so wonderful, so human and divine, was only a foolish hope.
And they were almost right, except for the tomb where the miracle began.
It was in the grave that suddenly someone began breathing! Someone began laughing! Someone began moving the stone away! Until finally, someone came forth! And that someone was Jesus, our truest hope! He made Death the path to life and resurrection power. Death became his instrument of victory and with just one piercing look, one straightforward glance, one penetrating stare into the face of the blackest of blacks, He returned to us the Everlasting Life. It was Jesus who played the grandest joke, tricking death with the simplicity of His surrendered life. Since then, His laughter has been heard resounding across the galaxies and the eons of eternity, so that with this new hope, we too can look into the face of Death through Love's eyes and laugh all the way Home.
(by Rhodie Shreve of VCC Easter Devotional)