“Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest at home in your place!” Once again I realize that because of the Cross, he’s talking about me. I belong here. 

Then this gripping description of our Creator. “Earth-Tamer, Ocean-Pourer, Mountain-Maker, Hill-Dresser…Muzzler of sea storm and wave crash, of mobs in noisy riot …”  Mobs in noisy riot?  We are praying for some of that muzzling in our day, aren’t we?   

And look at this! “Dawn and dusk take turns calling, “Come and worship” …from morning till twilight, He calls us into His Presence. He never gets tired of us. Day and night, let incense arise.  

Then the Psalmist pleas with the Almighty. “Oh, visit the earth, ask her to join the dance! Deck her out in spring showers, fill the God-River with living water. Paint the wheat fields golden. Creation was made for this!” Aren’t we watching this unfold, morning by morning?  

“Drench the plowed fields, soak the dirt clods with rainfall as harrow and rake bring her to blossom and fruit. Snow-crown the peaks with splendor, scatter rose petals down the paths…all through the wild meadows, rose petals. Set the hills to dancing…”  

Read it all! Look around you! Take a walk, breathe in the lush green, breathe out your words of praise. He has created it all! He is in control. Life triumphs over death. Light wins over darkness once again, a reminder that our King is coming back. 

“Oh, oh, let them sing!” 

Oh, good. The parking lot is almost empty and only a few shoppers are drifting through the door. What a perfect morning – blue skied as can be, chilly, typical New England Easter weather.

It’s peaceful in the store and I glide through, maneuvering around shelf stockers, gathering the odd items I forgot. Here I am at the checkout. This line looks promising – one woman ahead of me with a large order, but the clerk is efficient and she’s moving through.

Suddenly everything comes to a screeching halt. The woman is getting on her phone, saying, “This will only take a minute”. It takes much longer than a minute as she is transferring funds into her checking account. Indignation rises within me. What right does she have to slow me down? How piggy! I maintain control and the transfer takes place. The clerk tells her, “You have a very nice lady behind you!” Little does she know what’s brewing in my heart. The woman turns, gives me a lovely smile and thanks me, and takes off. I swallow hard, return the smile, and think, “Rose! You hypocrite!”

What follows is a three way conversation about the vulnerability of electronic transfers, and the joy of the season. “Happy Easter!” is everywhere. Well, on the way home, I’m listening to the song, “And I saw Him, high and lifted up, with power and grace and authority”. Oh, Jesus, I am not like You. Thank you for your resurrection power! Change me Lord! Teach me react like You do!

 Then suddenly, out of the blackness, the Lion of Judah roars!  The earth heaves and trembles with Resurrection power.  Satan stares in horror as Death dies and Messiah turns the world right side up. And what is this that appears to the guards? A  bolt of lightening? No… it’s a huge figure, glowing with light, white as snow.  

 “Look, Gaius…he’s going to the tomb! He thinks to roll that stone away?  There it goes… I can’t stop shaking!” Down they go.  

The women come, check out the empty tomb, hear the angel’s words. “He is not here; He is risen, just as He said”. Then suddenly, their Messiah stands before them. What can they do but worship Him? Then off they go to tell the others.  

Meanwhile, the guards are once more on their feet, struggling to figure out how to cope with this disaster. Their lives are on the line for failing to prevent the event of the ages. “Best to tell the chief priests what we saw.” 

 Off they hurry to report to Satan’s henchmen, who respond to their eyewitness account by tasking them with a prefabricated lie. Not a surprising response, considering the source. 

Their instructions?  “Spread the rumor that his disciples came during the night and stole his body while you slept”.  A bit of cash cements the guards’ resolve and the story takes on a life of its own. Possibly one of the biggest lies ever told. But it isn’t big enough. God’s Truth is greater than any lie of the enemy, and His Kingdom grows stronger every day. 

Our God reigns! It’s good to remember this Truth on Resurrection Day, 2024.  

 “No more of this!” said Jesus. Just like that, He touched the servant’s ear and healed him. And then came the rebuke.  

“Put your sword back in its place! Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and He will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Mt. 26:52-53). 

I don’t need your sword, Peter. My Father is ready to send armies of angels down to deal with these rebels and set me free. But how would the scriptures ever be fulfilled? There is no other way.  

Peter, stung by these words, would turn away and deny Christ. But a few weeks later, after Jesus gave His Life on the Cross, rose from the Dead, ascended to the Father’s right hand, and poured out the Holy Spirit, Peter stood and declared him to be Lord and Christ. 3000 people came to faith and the Church was born in a day.  

Aren’t you glad that He doesn’t give up on us? 

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: (Isaiah 53:4) 

Life is full of grief and loss. What eats at your heart at 3:00 in the morning? What old memory attacks you in the middle of the night, burying you in regret for what can never be changed? What unjust betrayal, possibly from years ago, stabs you over and over again?  Did Jesus really bear our griefs and sorrows as well as our sins? Is this too good to be true?   

If it is true, then He is able to lift you above the hurt, the loss. He can heal. He can restore hope that better days are coming, for in Jesus, it all ends well. Really well! We can release the pain to Him, our grief-bearer. Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. That is His promise to us, His children. 

The stripped down answer lies in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the Resurrection of the Body.”  Really? These are startling words in our post Christian times. Here is bedrock faith, not just a vague hope of some ethereal existence, but a physical resurrection, a transformation, an equipping for Eternity. After all, how would these bodies cope with Heaven? 

Our modern day fascination with the care and feeding of our bodies is rampant. Just count the fitness centers in your town. We worship at the altars of physical beauty and health, yet we view our bodies as impermanent and without intrinsic value. We are urged to drench our bodies in pleasure while we can; life is short and “If that’s all there is,” as the song goes, let’s go for it. The body is only “Dust in the Wind”. Or is it? 

Scripture pushes back. Six hundred years before Jesus burst out of the tomb on Resurrection morning, the prophet Isaiah wrote, “But your dead will live, their bodies will rise, You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead”. Here is the death of Death. Yes, Dust shall sing! These words shout in the face of despair, pushing back our deepest fears. Too good to be true? 

Later Paul the Apostle added this: ” …the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” No longer captured in space/time, no longer subject to death and decay, we will live in His Presence, never to die again. No wonder we sing on Easter morning.