Praise the Lord for the wonders of His
love. The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday. It was sunny
and stunning. The Lord of heaven and earth decorated the evening with
a brilliant moon, streaming on the earth, accompanied with a gentle
breeze. He blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday gathering for a
community dinner which was prepared with much love and served with much
gladness.
I stopped by the Community Center during
the morning to interact with the senior saints who gather there on a daily
basis. I met a woman who accompanied her dear mom who is 91 years
old, who is loved, adored, and cherished by her family. The woman
shared with me that she graduated from the local High School and went on to
university to get her Ph.D in Biology and she is professor in Pittsburgh.
She further share that her dad passed away at the age of 91 a couple years ago.
Her mom lives at home, where she and her siblings care for her
faithfully. She comes home for a week each month just to spend time with
her mom. It was blessing for me to meet her and her mom whose is name is
Alice.
I stopped by at Wegmans, one of the more
trendy grocery stores in the Triple Cities. This store carries produce
from all over the world. While surveying the produce and the
products I overheard a beautiful woman inquiring from one of the associates
about the "Passover Groceries', and I said, "what a
country". Passover begins on April 22 and concludes on the April 30.
Our Christian brothers and sisters in the Orthodox Church all over
the will observe the Good Friday on April 29 and celebrate Easter on
Sunday the May 1, 2016.
Recent archeological expeditions have
unearthed surprising finds of families buried together in age-old cemeteries,
side by side, destroying older ideas about Neanderthals in Europe. Now,
we understand they had the same questions about death and the hereafter as we
do. No doubt, an ancient human figure from the mountains of Europe held a
dying child in his arms, looking up into the heavens, seeing the signs of life,
death and rebirth all about him in nature, and asking himself, “What about this
child? Will I see him again?”
As
a pastor, I have seen that very picture in my ministry many times through the
decades. The questions remain the same. Death is a familiar, if not
foreboding, force that I have seen enter the lives of my own family members and
the families of so many of our people, leaving us with the same questions as
the ancients. Not much has changed…or has it?
The
apostle Paul picked up on the theme of death and what happens when we die in 1
Corinthians 15. Some had taught, even as in Jesus’ time, that there was
no resurrection from the dead. Others had taught that the soul
merely sleeps in the grave until Jesus comes again. Paul, in refuting
this bad theology, advanced a powerful argument: that the resurrection of Jesus
Christ is not only central to the Christian faith, but it is the center point
on the salvation plan of God in human history. As such, this event has
powerful consequences for eternity and for now.
This
leads us to a tremendous truth for our lives this day. In the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has overcome the dark tomb of our ancient
despair with the bright promise of His new hope. New
hope Is made possible by a new world order
This new world order is now here and underway, though not based on politics, finance, or international relations. It is a new world order that is greater than all those and greater than all the kingdoms that have ever been or ever will be. It is a gospel conspiracy that is taking over the earth through love and grace, consuming the earth one person at a time. As of today, approximately 200,000 people a day are confessing Jesus Christ as Lord.
This new world order is now here and underway, though not based on politics, finance, or international relations. It is a new world order that is greater than all those and greater than all the kingdoms that have ever been or ever will be. It is a gospel conspiracy that is taking over the earth through love and grace, consuming the earth one person at a time. As of today, approximately 200,000 people a day are confessing Jesus Christ as Lord.
St.
Paul said, “As in Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive.” He
was saying that all includes all of humanity. We are all sons and daughters of
Adam. We all die because we are children carrying the virus of sin. Sin
produces death, but for all who turn to Jesus Christ through repentance and
faith will receive resurrection life. They will be made alive. Scripture
teaches that when we receive Jesus as Lord, we pass from death to life.
We are liberated from judgment. At death, we pass immediately into the
presence of the Lord by the righteous life and sacrificial death of Jesus.
At the second coming of Jesus Christ, our bodies will rise again from the
grave, and we will be—body and soul—complete in a new heaven and a new
earth. The old enemy, death, has been dealt a great blow and is on its
way to terminal defeat.
Previously,
the psalmist argued that in Sheol no one could praise God. Yet, in the
Book of Revelation, we see the saints praising the Lamb, Jesus Christ, gathered
at the throne of God! Something has happened, and that something is the
resurrection of Jesus. This is why the Bible says, “Precious in the eyes
of the Lord is the death of His saints.” This is why St. Paul concluded
this magnum opus on the resurrection with his unforgettable line, “Death is
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death,
where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55
In Christ,
Brown
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