Laying in the Sand

As I was out to dinner with two friends one says, “I need to go lay in the sand.” The next thing we knew we were paying our bill and off to the beach. This was not in our plans for the day so we were not prepared. Luckily I was wearing my sandals – but one of my friends had his shoes and socks on. We all had long pants with dress shirts and walked onto the beach with blankets from the trunk.

The beach was full of well prepared beach goers. They had their swimsuits, aqua shoes, coolers with water, sun umbrellas, beach chairs, and towels. We looked around at all the well prepared beach goers as we walked to find a good place to lay down our blankets and rest in the sand. We may have not been well prepared that day – but our lack of preparedness didn’t take away from our soulful conversation on the sand that day.

We are always preparing for something in our personal life, work, or home. We worry, fret, and wonder if we have done everything. Yet to no avail we are caught off guard.

The disciples were caught off guard when Jesus rose from the dead. In Luke – they think Jesus a ghost; in John – Jesus has to speak Mary’s name before she recognizes him; in Matthew – there is an earthquake and angels descend from heaven; and in Mark – the disciples left the tomb so full of terror and amazement they couldn’t talk about what had happened.

The disciples were not prepared for what Jesus did on that day – even if they thought they were. The disciple’s lack of preparedness didn’t take away from the reality of what God did for us. Prepared or not, Jesus changed death into life.