The Vantage Point Between Two Worlds

It was a sunny afternoon. A dozen small worries peppered my mind, turning my mood melancholy. You feel it sometimes, too, I imagine.

I decided to sit and think a minute—rearrange my point of view. And then I saw outside my bedroom window a single burst of yellow amid a colorless hillside. Not the usual patches of daffodils, which I knew were opening, but one daffodil, alert, far from the others.

And like a flag, this shock of yellow sat planted in front of a very large and curious limestone boulder.

I’d noted the limestone boulder in seasons past. How it appeared ancient, pock-marked, multi-colored from moss and weather. The boulder curved out from the earth, and underneath lay a little opening, like a cave.

Was it home to a possum, or a canopy for chickadees in a rainstorm?

I stared at the boulder and wondered, how similar the gap looked to the opening of Jesus’s tomb of rock against a hillside.

The yellow daffodil in front of the boulder nodded.

Amid the worries that outlined my day, there sat a reminder of the empty tomb.

The empty tomb signifies the commencement of every “yes.” “Yes” to every promise God will fulfill, every gift he bestows (2 Cor 1:20).

The next day I walked up the hill to take a picture of the daffodil before it withered. Then I sat, making space to dwell, not on my troubles, but on Jesus’s death and resurrection.

There’s a moment in The Hobbit that reminds me despair has no footing for the person who finds their life in Christ.

Deep in a shadowy forest, the hobbit climbs a tree to discern his location. The vantage point “was no good. Gaze as much as he might, he could see no end to the trees and the leaves in any direction,” and so he despairs.

Yet the hobbit’s tree lies in a valley, distorting his view. In fact, the forest wasn’t to stretch on much further, but the hobbit didn’t know it.

Does your vantage point include Jesus Christ’s empty tomb?

In Christ we are gifted—not just forgiveness via the cross—but also fellowship. Through the Holy Spirit, we live our days on earth accompanied by God, identified as God’s own treasure. Do you see yourself in this light?

Christ, resurrected and ascended to reign in heaven, brings us into fellowship with God the Father who welcomes us. We are loved by the triune God, sealed and sustained by God the Holy Spirit, united to God the Son, all of us who are in Christ (2 Cor 1:21-22).

Like a shocking bloom of vibrant yellow, we are shocked by this reality and celebrate again and again the empty tomb.

(Daffodil photo taken by me, 2025. Forest photo from Unsplash by Kat Closon.)

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