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Easter~Education~Evangelism

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Easter

Easter

Ezekiel 37:1-3, 11-14; Matthew 28:1-10; John 5:25; John 11:25-27

Christ the Lord is risen to-day, Alleluia!

Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!

Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!

Sing, ye heav'ns, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

—Charles Wesley

Are You Ready?

When Dr. Cary Grayson told Woodrow Wilson the gravity of his condition, the President replied, "I am ready."

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The resurrection is the land where great mists lie, but it is the land where the great rivers spring.

—David Cairns

H. G. Wells was once asked by a friend if he believed in another life. He replied, "One life is quite enough for little H. G."

Confirmation of Easter

He looked as old as the Judean hills and just as ugly. A short, stocky man draped in soiled robes stood at the entrance to Lazarus's tomb. Beneath his weathered face was a contagious smile. His clear, piercing eyes flashed the confirmation of Easter. Proudly he spoke of Bethany. With deep feeling, he described the sadness that claimed the community when Lazarus died. Gently he pointed to the tombs, saying, "Jesus came here and raised Lazarus. This is the place where the Master said, 'I am the resurrection and the life'" (John ll: 25ff). So spoke the guide on one visit to Bethany.

Do You Know God?

In a splendid sermon (Pulpit Digest, March-April 1983), Lewis A. Drummond of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said: "When everything else is over and said and done, only one thing ultimately matters: Do you know God? Can you face eternity with Him?"

Facing Death

One of the penetrating churchmen of the past generation was Reverend James Gordon Gilkey. While living in Portland, Oregon, he was told by his physician that he had an incurable disease. Death could not be averted, nor long delayed. What did he do? Here is his own story:

I walked out to my home five miles from the center of the city. There I looked at the river and the mountain which I love, and then—as the twilight deepened—at the stars glimmering in the sky. Then I said to them, "I may not see you many times more. But River, I shall be alive when you have ceased running to the sea. Mountain, I shall be alive when you have sunk down into the plain. Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen in the ultimate disintegration of the universe."

The Gift of Life

While a patient at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa, Philip Blaiberg told of the night when Christiaan Barnard, gowned and muzzled, walked into his sterile room carrying in his hand a plastic box. It contained his old heart. The eminent surgeon said: "Dr. Blaiberg, do you realize that you are the first man in the history of mankind to be able to sit as you are now, and look at his own, dead heart?"

What a dramatic moment! What a miracle! Second unto it was when the courageous patient met for the first time the woman who had given him life, namely, permission for surgeons to remove the heart of her dead husband. Blaiberg asked, "What does one say in such circumstances? She had lost a life, I had gained one."

This is precisely the gift of the revolutionary Christ: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).

Holy Week

May Holy Week be holy with ministries of unselfishness.

May Holy Week be holy with acts of forgiveness.

May Holy Week be holy with demonstrations of faith.

And may we keep it holy with love.

House Of Life

Death is no stranger. Much is made over it; sometimes funeral displays far exceed demonstrations of Christian discipleship. Extravagant sentimentality frequently prevails. The mortuary is a house of death; the church is a house of life.

If We Live the Eternal

The late and marvelous preacher, Ralph W. Sockman, while writing an Easter sermon one year, received word that a friend had died. He was a scholar, a doctor of philosophy from Columbia University, a distinguished missionary to China for forty years. A daily prayer of this remarkable servant included: "Oh, God our Father, I accept Thy gift of love; help me to pass it on for Jesus' sake" On the morning of the missionary's death, at age ninety-two, Lacey Sites said to those near his bedside: "If we live the eternal life now, we will always"

Not Yet Dead

At least once Samuel L. Clemens, better known as "Mark Twain," was listed as dead while being physically alive. This type of erroneous obituary has occurred all too often in the newspapers of our nation.

On one such embarrassing occasion, a man whose obit was printed in the paper rushed to the editor. The "corpse" lodged his protest: "How dare you print my obituary in the paper! I'm alive. See me. Here I am" "I sure am sorry" the editor answered, "And it's too late to do anything about it. The best thing I can do for you is to put you in the 'Birth Column' tomorrow morning and give you a fresh start!"

Lent

Fast from criticism, and feast on praise.

Fast from self-pity, and feast on joy.

Fast from ill-temper, and feast on peace.

Fast from resentment, and feast on contentment.

Fast from jealousy, and feast on love.

Fast from pride, and feast on humility.

Fast from selfishness, and feast on service.

Fast from fear, and feast on faith.

More Beyond

For centuries Portugal's motto was "Nothing More Beyond." Their world was limited to the familiar dimensions of the area around the Mediterranean Sea. They believed that to sail beyond the horizon, their border, would be to drop off the edge of the world. Eventually, voyagers discovered worlds beyond and brought back evidence to substantiate their claims. Decision makers were compelled to alter their motto to read, "More Beyond"

Easter assures us there is more beyond the grave. We do not have a chart to guide us, save Jesus Christ; details are sketchy, but our destination is certain.

The Mystery and the Promise

Toward the end of his monumental work, A Stillness at Appomattox, the War in Virginia, Bruce Catton described the sober moments preceding General Lee's surrender.

It was Palm Sunday, and they (the soldiers) would like to see Easter, and with the guns quieted it might be easier to comprehend the mystery and the promise of that day. Yet the fact of peace and no more killing and an open road home seems to have been too big to grasp, right at the moment, and in the enormous silence that lay upon the field men remembered that they had marched far and were very tired, and they wondered when the wagon trains would come up with rations.

Never Mind the Crucifixion

John Sutherland Bonnell shares this experience from World War II. A soldier lay wounded on the battlefield. He had been given up for dead. As life slowly and painfully returned, he thirsted for water. No one answered his cries. No one attended his wounds. Mercifully, he slipped into unconsciousness. When he awoke, a chaplain was bending over him. "You say, my boy, that you were wounded on Good Friday, and that you have been lying on the battlefield ever since? Do you know that this is Easter morning?"

The lad answered, "How wonderful! For me, too, it is like a resurrection. Out there on the field I died a thousand deaths, but somehow we do not mind the crucifixion when we are sure of the resurrection."

Palm Sunday

Henry Alford, English clergyman, was born in Somersetshire, October 7, 1810, to a family that had given England five generations of clergymen. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1832. Being a writer, as well as a theologian, he published and served smaller parishes before becoming dean of Canterbury Cathedral in 1856, a position he held until his death on June 12, 1871. He is buried at Canterbury. His epitaph reads: "The inn of a traveler on his way to Jerusalem."

See You in the Morning!

I shall long remember the homegoing of my father. He had been ill for some months. One Saturday morning, the Inner Voice told me I should visit him. He lived seventy-five miles up-country from Richmond, Virginia. Although the Sunday sermon had not been completely refined, I obeyed the prompting of the Spirit and made the journey.

Upon arriving, the nurse told me father had hoped I would come. She cleared the room and we had a wonderful visit. Death was imminent, but he was calm and lucid. After giving me several business directives, he declared he would soon be going. "Give my love to mother," I added. Then, with animation and joy he shared with me a moving dream from the previous night. They visited; mother was awaiting his arrival. I kissed him good-bye, and as I turned to leave he said, "Curt, I'll see you in the morning!" He died during my sermon that Sunday.

But I'll see him and mother in the morning!

Sharing the Faith

The Moravians refer to their common cemetery as "God's Acre." Members are buried beneath simple flat, white stones, all alike, to dramatize the democracy of death. During Holy Week, parishioners scrub clean those identifying stones. On Holy Saturday these loving people bring flowers for each grave. Then, before dawn on Easter morning, the community of believers meet at the church, and to the beat of a muted band, march into the cemetery to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

What We Least Understand

In A Grief Observed (Seabury, 1961), C. S. Lewis said: "There is also, whatever it means, the resurrection of the body. We cannot understand. The best is perhaps what we understand least."

Words Worth Hearing

In London during World War II, placards hung over broadcasting booths that read, "Is What You Are Saying Worth a Man's Risking His Life to Hear?" Jesus not only risked His life, indeed, He gave it for the privilege of authenticating the declaration: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26).

You Will Find Love and Welcome

John Todd was born in Vermont in 1801. Shortly afterwards his family moved to Killingsworth, Connecticut. Before John was six years old he was orphaned. He, his brothers, and sisters were parceled out among the relatives. John was assigned to a kindhearted aunt who lived ten miles away. She became father and mother to the homeless lad and saw him through Yale and into his chosen profession.

There came a time when the aunt was taken seriously ill. She knew that death was close at hand. She was afraid and uncertain about the future. In her anxiety she wrote John. Since he could not be at her bedside at the moment, he wrote her this letter:

It is now nearly thirty-five years since I, a little boy of six, was left quite alone in the world.... I have never forgotten the day when I made the long journey to your house in North Killingsworth. I still recall my disappointment when instead of coming for me yourself you sent your hired man Caesar to fetch me. And I can still remember my tears and anxiety, as perched on your horse and clinging tightly to Caesar, I started out for my new home. As we rode along, I became more and more afraid and finally said anxiously to Caesar, "Do you think she will go to bed before we get there?" "Oh, no," he answered reassuringly, "she'll sure stay up for you. When we get out of these here woods, you will see her candle shining in the window."

Presently we did ride out into a clearing, and there, sure enough, was your candle. I remember you were waiting at the door, that you put your arms around me, that you lifted me down from the horse. There was a fire on your hearth, a warm supper on your stove. After supper, you took me up to bed, heard my prayers, and then sat beside me until 1 dropped asleep.

You undoubtedly realize why I am recalling all these things.... Some day soon God may send for you, to take you to a new home. Don't fear the summons, the strange journey, the dark messenger of death. At the end of the road you will find love and a welcome; you will be safe there as here, in God's love and care. Surely He can be trusted to be as kind to you as you were years ago to me!

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