Article April 5, 1969 Issue

"The stone is rolled away"

REX MILLER

Easter brings all Christians a renewed awareness of their liberation from the claims of evil through the self-sacrifice of Christ Jesus. This joyous consciousness of freedom buoys human hopes and rejuvenates our faith in the eternal life of man in God's image and likeness. The barrier that seems to stand between our highest ideals and the realization of them is removed by this glorious vision of our God-given capabilities.

That barrier is typified by the stone that was placed at the entrance to the sepulcher in which Jesus' body was laid. It was the custom in those days to place the bodies of the deceased in caves or in vaults hewn out of the rocky hillsides. Then a great stone, often in the form of a thick disk rather like a millstone, was placed at the low entrance to the tomb. It rested in a groove and could he rolled back and forth. When placed across the opening, it was sometimes sealed. In the case of Jesus, the tomb was sealed, and a special watch was set by the chief priests and Pharisees, who feared that his disciples would come by night and steal his body away so that they could claim the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy, "After three days I will rise again."^{ Matt. 27:63;}

A stone has to be rolled away from human thinking about sin, disease, and death. What is this stone? Is it not the false belief in life as matter, in Soul as captive in a physical body, in good as limited and temporal?

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