What new ground is this?

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.  There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven...The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He is not here; he has risen...So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy.  Matthew 28:1,2,5,6,8

The gospel is not about giving up and going without for its own sake; it is about making room for something wonderful.  Malcolm Guite, Word in the wilderness

standing and now walking on NEW ground

He was horizontal.  He was leaden and inert in his disciple's arms. However, Jesus' feet are now once again firmly planted on the ground.  But what new ground is this?  The resurrection is edgy stuff.  Just look at the disciples reactions of doubt (not just Thomas's), fear and also joy.  Its this 'afraid yet filled with joy' that is being kneaded and turned inside them;  the great playground for significant change.  The felt experience is coarse and raw yet tingling with substantial impending happiness.  This is liminal space, a threshold.  

The disciples' despairing  'We had hoped' plunges further into mystery with the unknown depths that Jesus's resurrection tears open.   John Piper’s altarpiece mosaic The Road to Emmaus shows our onward path. Accompanied, on solid ground, wonderful ground, and new ground, for walking on.