Mar 16:4 And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.
Mar 16:5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.
Mar 16:6 And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.
But with it all, that stone became the symbol of a rebuke, which is always, with the Lord, instruction.
The Lord never rebukes in a dead way: He always rebukes instructively.
I can imagine them saying to one another in their elation, 'Why did we spend all night preparing those spices?
What were we up to, after all? We were going to anoint His dead body with our spices. Ours was a prospect of utter despair. We worked in unbelief'.
If you work in unbelief it is always despair.
They were rebuked by the stone rolled away. Very likely in after years, when they were contemplating a situation that was humanly very difficult or impossible, the reminder would come back to them - 'Remember the stone! Do not go down that street again; death is that way!' Thus the rebuke would be unto instruction.
And does not the Lord use our experiences like that?
I am not saying that we never do go down that street again, and I am not saying that the Lord never allows us to come up against further impossible situations - He does;
But in the second test we should derive something from the first, and in the third from the second, and so we go on building up.
2Co 1:10 Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;
We have learned something of Christ. Rebuke - and yet we need that rebuke.
So often when difficulty arises we go down, we throw up our hands, we are overcome by it.
We do not say, 'But remember, we were up against a difficulty once before, and the Lord saw us through, we did not go under'. We are slow to do that.
~T. Austin Sparks~