This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses
against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
Now choose life, so that you and your children may live {20} and that you may
love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD
is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to
your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.(Deu 30:19‑20 NIV)
Dear friends,
C.S, Lewis= book Surprised by Joy recounts
his early life and conversion to Christianity, as God sought him when he did
not want to be found. A complex person and profound thinker, Lewis came to be a
leading Christian writer and apologist. We, here in the early
days of the 21st century, aren=t
surprised by much. We have become inured to the ways of the world, and
perhaps too familiar with the ways of God. We read the Easter story with some
sense of having heard it before; it no longer shocks and surprises.
Yet if we put ourselves in
the place of those who went to the tomb that early Sunday morning, we might
more readily grasp the mixture of fear, joy, and disbelief that the empty tomb
provoked. What possibilities await us, as we begin to grasp the reality of
resurrection!
Popular culture keeps trying to put Jesus back in
the tomb, for we cannot bear the
weight of the reality that He lives! Those who crucify Jesus would very much
like to keep Him dead. We keep trying to domesticate and control God, seeking
to explain away miracles, to parse out the mysteries, so we can reduce God to
our categories. Yet again and again God gets loose to amaze us with His power
and His mercy. God reminds us of the power of possibility, for with God, all
things are possible. That inexorable force that causes bulbs to burst through
dead, dry leaves, sap to flow from aging trees, life to erupt where there was
none, dry bones to dance, reminds us of resurrection power. God=s great power flows through all creation, calling us
to choose life!
The force that through the green fuse drives the flowerBDylan Thomas, 1934
May this Easter be a time
of true joy and reflection as we contemplate the reality of resurrection and
its significance for us here and now, and forever!
Blessings,
Rev. John