Easter is coming, and as Christians, we gather every Sunday, not just once a year to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior and Lord. But even as we celebrate every week, and anticipate celebrating with the rest of the world in a couple weeks, our hearts are struggling with the realization and that there is a whole lot wrong with our world.
Unrelenting hatred seems to rule in the hearts and lives of so many and the results of terror are seen all over our world and even in our communities.
This is a great story: It was on Feb. 27, 1991, at the height if Desert Storm, that a lady named Ruth Dillow received a message from the Pentagon that every parent of a soldier fears receiving. It stated that her son, Clayton Carpenter, Private 1st Class, had stepped on a mine in Kuwait and was killed.
Mrs. Dillow later rote, “I can’t begin to describe my grief and shock. It was almost more than I could bear. For 3 days I wept. For 3 days I expressed anger and loss. For 3 days people tried to comfort me, to no avail because the loss was too great.”
But, there is an interesting twist to this story. Three days after she received the message, the telephone rang. The voice on the other side said, “Mom, it’s me. I’m alive.” Mrs. Dillow said, “I couldn’t believe it at first. But then I recognized his voice, and he was really alive.” It turned out that the message she received was a mistake! She said, “I laughed, I cried, I felt like turning cartwheels, because my son whom I thought was dead, was really alive. I’m sure none of you can even begin to understand how I felt.”
There are some who walked the pages of the New Testament that would have understood completely how she felt because they experiences he same emotions themselves. On a Friday, they watched their best friend, their teacher, their brother and son being nailed to a cross. They witnessed, first hand, His pain as He cried out, “I thirst!” and then He cried “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
They sat at the foot of the cross and listened as finally he bowed his head and said, “It is finished!” Then He cried out, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” They watched as His body was taken from the cross and was buried in another man’s tomb. It seemed that all their hopes and dreams were buried with him.
Friday and then all day Saturday they mourned, until finally, on “the first day of the week, early in the morning,” the scripture says, some women made their way along the path that led to His tomb, wondering who would roll away the stone for them.
But when they arrived, they found that the stone had already been rolled away. And an angel there told them, You’re looking in the wrong place. You’re looking for Jesus among the dead. He is not dead. He is alive. He is risen, even as He said!”
“He is risen!” That is what we celebrate every Sunday morning. And that is what the world will be looking at in a couple of weeks. When all the evidence is in we’re convinced that Jesus is alive. Let’s celebrate that He is risen from the dead. What a difference His resurrection has made!