Eyes Down, Charging Forward: When Our Best Preparations Get Ahead of God's Plan

Mark 16:1-4 — "Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus' body. Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they were asking each other, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?' But as they arrived, they looked up and saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled aside."

We have read through these verses many times and overlooked this point. I am a person who likes to be prepared for whatever task is at hand, and at times, my preparations can go a little overboard. When I have guests over for dinner, I will make too much food. Where I should plan for 8 people, I can now easily feed 12 or more. Realistically, no one wants to eat that many leftovers, and I have yet to find dinner guests hungry enough to put a dent in my over-ambitious cooking.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out to purchase spices to prepare the body for burial. It's safe to say these three women weren't alone in their thinking. Their desire to take care of the task at hand is deeply familiar to us. They went about the normal tasks they were accustomed to. They didn't stop to consider who would help them roll the stone away. Certainly, in their grief, they weren't thinking about anything other than the Lord's death and burial. And yet, by the time they arrived at the tomb, Jesus was gone. He had risen from the grave. They had prepared for something that no longer needed to be done.

This is where we need to pause. They purchased spices for a body that wasn't there. They prepared faithfully, and yet what they were preparing for had already been handled. So let's stop here and ask ourselves: What am I preparing for? What am I trying to take care of? Am I so accustomed to running my life that I'm handling everything on my own? Ouch, right?

Here's what makes that even more striking. The Bible tells us that at least three times before His death, Jesus told them He would die and three days later rise again (Matthew 16:21, 17:22-23, 20:17-19). They had heard the words. They just hadn't understood them yet. This wasn't unusual, because throughout the Gospels the disciples often walked away from Jesus uncertain of what He had said, and several times Jesus gently called out their lack of understanding (Matthew 15:16-17, Mark 8:17-21). They weren't failing Him. They were doing exactly what made sense with what they could see. But they were moving ahead of what He had already set in motion.

I have special memories of the days when my son was a 3-year-old little boy with a shaved head and a dirt-and-chocolate ring around his mouth. He had the habit of running head-first, eyes down, hands back behind him like an invisible superhero cape, straight into anything and everything. When a door was opened in front of him, he ran straight ahead without looking. One summer, this sweet boy ran like that so often that his forehead had huge welts, bruises, and cuts from left to right. Some of those welts even had fresh new welts jutting out on top of the old ones, like something out of an old cartoon. I didn't know that was actually possible. But before that summer ended, he learned to never run like that again.

Often we hear the Lord tell us something, and like my 3-year-old son, we take off running, getting everything ready, charging ahead, when He doesn't need that from us. So intent on doing the task that we never look up to focus on the One leading us.

The women at the tomb weren't wrong to love Jesus. They weren't wrong to want to serve Him. What they hadn't realized yet was that He had already gone ahead of them, and the very thing they were preparing for had already been conquered. That's the invitation here. Not to stop moving, but to stop moving ahead of Him. To hold our preparations a little more loosely. To look up before we charge forward.

What are you trying to take care of on your own today?
Where in your life are you charging forward alone, and how can you bring that into your relationship with the Lord?

Online Outreach Team
Faith Voegeli