Dear Friends in Christ:
Yesterday was Easter Sunday. It was a wonderful day of celebration for our Congregation! “Christ is Risen. He is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!”
Today is Monday and the joy, hope, and peace of Easter is still very real for me as I write this article. It is my prayer that this is true for each one of you.
On the church-year calendar, the Easter Season is 50 days of rejoicing. And, all year long every Sunday is “a little Easter”, as Martin Luther once said. As God’s people who are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our lifetime is sustained by the daily Good News of those first witnesses of the Resurrection:
“They put Jesus to death by hanging him on a cross; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear.” (Acts 10:39-40)
“Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures… was buried… and was raised on the third day…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.’” (Luke 24:1-5)
How is this message real for our daily lives? Three stories I read in my meditations today spoke to my heart and mind. I hope they will give you the VERY REAL HOPE of EASTER:
Clarence Jordan wrote The Cotton Patch Gospel, a version of the New Testament in the dialect of the rural South. He may be best known for that scripture paraphrase, but in the 1960s Jordan, a white pastor, founded an interracial community in Georgia called Koinonia Farms. The bigoted culture all around him shunned Jordan. Threats were made to his life, but he persevered.
In 1969, Clarence Jordan died of a heart attack. None of the local funeral directors was willing to help with his funeral — out of either prejudice or fear of violence — so he ended up being buried in a plain cedar box on a hillside near his farm.
Jordan’s friend, Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, officiated at the funeral. When the serivce was ended, it was time to lower to casket into the ground. Just as this was happening, Fuller’s two-year-old daughter stepped up to the grave and began to sing the only song she knew: “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Clarence, happy birthday to you.”
Yesterday was Easter Sunday. It was a wonderful day of celebration for our Congregation! “Christ is Risen. He is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!”
Today is Monday and the joy, hope, and peace of Easter is still very real for me as I write this article. It is my prayer that this is true for each one of you.
On the church-year calendar, the Easter Season is 50 days of rejoicing. And, all year long every Sunday is “a little Easter”, as Martin Luther once said. As God’s people who are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our lifetime is sustained by the daily Good News of those first witnesses of the Resurrection:
“They put Jesus to death by hanging him on a cross; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear.” (Acts 10:39-40)
“Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures… was buried… and was raised on the third day…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.’” (Luke 24:1-5)
How is this message real for our daily lives? Three stories I read in my meditations today spoke to my heart and mind. I hope they will give you the VERY REAL HOPE of EASTER:
Clarence Jordan wrote The Cotton Patch Gospel, a version of the New Testament in the dialect of the rural South. He may be best known for that scripture paraphrase, but in the 1960s Jordan, a white pastor, founded an interracial community in Georgia called Koinonia Farms. The bigoted culture all around him shunned Jordan. Threats were made to his life, but he persevered.
In 1969, Clarence Jordan died of a heart attack. None of the local funeral directors was willing to help with his funeral — out of either prejudice or fear of violence — so he ended up being buried in a plain cedar box on a hillside near his farm.
Jordan’s friend, Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, officiated at the funeral. When the serivce was ended, it was time to lower to casket into the ground. Just as this was happening, Fuller’s two-year-old daughter stepped up to the grave and began to sing the only song she knew: “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Clarence, happy birthday to you.”
As Fuller later told the tale, it seemed to all who were present that the Lord was somehow behind that innocent, childlike song. For what they had all been celebrating that day, on a Georgia hillside, was not a death after all: but a wonderful, glorious rebirth.
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Brad was still pouting and crying in his beer at the local bar one year later, after he lost his job at the factory. His job went overseas and Brad blamed the US president, NAFTA, the congress, and everybody who ran the country. One day, a former shop worker, who also lost his factory job, came into the bar for a burger and a drink. He told Brad that there are plenty of jobs selling insurance. The company would train him. But Brad would have to believe that there is new life after the factory. Could this factory worker adapt to a white-collar sales job?
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For 2,000 years there have been inquiries concerning proof of the resurrection, and questions are still being asked today. In this post-modern era we want empirical proof. To the question posed we hear over and over, “I know what I know.” That answer does not provide what people are looking for. Like “looking for love in all the wrong places”, they may be looking for Christ in all the wrong ways. The greatest testimony to a risen and living Christ is the lives that he has transformed. Look around you and observe the witness of those you know who have experienced the risen, living Christ. Their lives have been transformed by a Christ encounter, and there is no other explanation for the changes in their lifestyles and their passion to spread the good news.
When the living Christ touches your life, you know it, and you know that you are now a different person. Your joy and that peace that surpasses all understanding are the hallmarks of a new life in Christ. They are your gift by the grace of God.
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—Pastor David Fetter
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