Praise the Lord. It is Friday,
but Sunday is coming. The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday
evening gathering for fellowship and study. The Fellowship was sweet and
the study was both very provocative and heart warming. The Lord blessed
us with a wonderful time with the students at release time yesterday. Children
are filled with exuberance and spontaneity. The sharing time with the
children often becomes in-depth sharing. Their smiles and laughter, along
with their inquisitive questions, fill our souls with, "Thank You,
Jesus."
Please pray for one of our grandsons,
who suffered a severe injury on the playground. We are praying
and trusting that the Lord would bring to him full and complete healing. Thank
you for praying. Praise the Lord for one of our dear friends who
has gone through foot surgery. The Lord is strengthening her. She
is able to walk again. A couple of friends are traveling to the
Philippines on a short term mission. Please join in praying for them.
"God Made a Farmer". I
am a farmer by birth. I have started some vegetable seeds. They are
sprouting profusely. One of our friends is preparing a very fertile garden
plot with a fence to keep the deer out. We are excited abut Spring
planting.
We are getting ready for Sunday, the
Lord's Day. Sunday school will meet at 10:00 AM and worship will begin at
11:00 AM, followed by fellowship hour.
I have been looking at 1 Corinthians 15. this morning. Chapter 15 in First Corinthians is an explosive chapter. Seven times in these few verses Paul uses the word "if." "If Christ has not been raised," says the apostle, then preaching is in vain, faith is futile, forgiveness is a myth, and there is no hope of heaven. "If" is a pretty big word for having only two letters. Think how different American history would be if Lincoln had not gone to Ford's Theater that night or if Lee Harvey Oswald's aim had been a hair off. Things would be altogether different—if....
The greatest "if" is this one: "If Christ has not been raised ... ." But Paul did not stop with "if." He concluded with the ringing affirmation, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead." "But someone may ask," said Paul, "'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?'" Paul answered with a parable of sorts. He spoke about the sowing of seed, and his point is this: There is an intimate relationship between a seed of corn and a cornstalk, but if you had never seen a cornstalk, could you imagine what one looked like just by studying a seed? Just so, we cannot imagine the resurrected body by looking at the bodies we possess now.
Easter is about living. The message of Easter is not merely a comfort for those who expect to die; it is a bracing word of assurance for those who expect to live. I love the way Paul ended his song of triumph in 1 Corinthians 15. "Therefore, do not be afraid to live!" "Therefore, my dear brothers," said the apostle, "stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
Paul was not talking about dying; he was talking about living. The children's bedtime prayer goes "... if I should die before I wake," but Paul's message is for those who expect to wake before they die. Paul's conclusion is "Therefore, do not be afraid to live—for Jesus Christ."
I love the Easter narratives found in all the Gospels, slightly differing yet pointing to the epicenter of the Resurrection event. In John's gospel the resurrected Jesus seems to have a non-material presence, passing through closed doors to join his disciples in the upper room. In Luke's account, Jesus eats bread and fish and calms his frightened followers by saying, "It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (24:39). Matthew and Mark remember one angel at the tomb; John and Dr. Luke report two. and then there's Matthew's earthquake, which seems to have escaped everyone else's notice.
The Easter symphony thunders with dissonance, but this much the gospels have in common: they all affirm that Jesus died and rose again. "The resurrection is a great mystery, an event beyond human understanding," said Luther. True, but in one sense the resurrection is a simple matter. It is simple in that either it happened or it didn't. Either Jesus rose from the dead or he did not. It's either yes or no, true or false. It has to be one or the other. The gospels sing out with one mighty voice, "He is risen!"
E.B. White's wife was a Christian. When she died, he wrote of her, "Katherine was a member of that resurrection conspiracy, the company of those who plant seeds of hope under dark skies." Paul planted a seed of hope under a dark sky: Nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord! Christ is Risen indeed.
In Jesus the Risen Lord.
Brown
https://youtu.be/4Q0qho_hKEg
