PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

April 9, 2023

EASTER 2023

It is a rainy, gloomy Friday as I sit at my computer writing this article.  There is a possibility that it might snow tomorrow, the first day of April. The news broadcasts are fixated on the indictment of Former President Trump, the shooting at the Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, and the arrest of Wall Street Journal colonist Evan Gershkovich by the Russians. My basketball teams in this year’s March Madness has long since departed the field.

The news this Lenten season has not been all that encouraging.  There have been two Norfolk Southern train crashes in Ohio.  One, in East Palestine, caused the evacuation of the small town and has left lingering concerns about its long term affects.  The banking system has been called into question with the failure of several banks.  The U.S. has seen extreme weather with tornadoes breaking out in the south on March 24.  Rolling Folk, Mississippi, was especially hard hit.    A 7.8-magitude earthquake hit the Turkey/Syria border.

Friday of the first Holy Week the followers of Jesus would scatter with His arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  A dark cloud had descended upon them.  The light of their life was gone and they were left with nothing but darkness.  The future looked bleak and they hid in fear.  The grand adventure they had been on for three years had come to a sudden end.

Everything changed on Sunday when the women discovered the empty tomb.  The despair of their loss turned to hope; the gloom of the crucifixion turned to joy; their darkness turned to light.  In the forty days that followed before Jesus’ ascension the followers of Jesus were energized and commissioned to go forth to spread the Good News that Jesus had risen from the dead.

The first Easter morning most of the circumstances surrounding the Holy Week events had not changed.  Pilate was still in charge and Caiaphas was still the high priest.  The forces which had Jesus put to death were still active and posed a potential danger to Jesus’ followers.  What had changed for the followers of Jesus were not the circumstances, but the perspective from which they viewed them.  They now looked and saw everything from the perspective of the resurrection.

The chorus of the 1971 Bill and Gloria Gaither song Because He Lives expresses well what the followers of Jesus might have felt that first Easter.  “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.  Because he Lives, all fear is gone.  Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living.  Just because He lives!”  In verse #2 we find words of assurance for Lent 2023.  “How sweet to hold a newborn baby, and feel the pride and joy he brings.  But greater still the calm assurance this child can face uncertain days because He lives.”

Easter 2023 is a reminder that if we put our faith in the one who arose from the dead the first Easter, we can face the coming days with assurance and hope.  The fear that our circumstances generate can be replaced by knowing who holds the future.  We can have a calm assurance as we face uncertain days because Jesus lives.