Brown's Daily Word 4-11-13

Praise the Lord for this new day. The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday Evening gathering for fellowship, study, and prayer. I got an email from our daughter Sunita, who is in the Republic of Georgia. She shared how the Lord is blessing her time in that beautiful country. She writes that the people are very hospitable and very beautiful. Praise the Lord for Easter People around the corner and around the globe.

I read a piece this week about the Oklahoma City bombing, which happened three days after Easter, on April 19, 1995. The story chronicles what has happened in that city since then; walls between people and between churches have been taken down. At local restaurants, the subjects often talked about are spiritual ones. The article spoke about Nick Harris, Pastor of First United Methodist Church, which is located next to the bombing site. Harris was supposed to be taping a TV show in his sanctuary at that time. His producer was uncharacteristically late, which saved both their lives.

After the explosion Harris stepped into the sanctuary where he saw another miracle. Easter Sunday had been three days earlier, and the church still had several lilies along the altar and the choir loft railing. "Everything else had been blown down," Harris says. "The windows were out. The skylights were out. But the Easter lilies were still standing in place. Not a single one of them had been knocked over. To me, regardless of all the destruction and all the damage, those lilies told the story that life is more powerful than death and good is more powerful than evil and love will always reign over hate."

All my life our Risen Lord has been surprising me; He seldom acts the way I think He should, but He always acts in ways that are right. So often in life the things which cause me the greatest pain are the very things He uses for His purposes in my life. No matter how much darkness tries to seal us in, no matter how hard evil is at work around us, let us declare and affirm that our Lord loves surprises. On Friday Jesus wept and all creation wept with Him. The sun turned to darkness and the earth shook with great sobs. But on Easter Sunday Jesus laughed and all creation with Him. This time the earth shook with heavenly laughter. According the Mathew's account of the Easter Morning, the picture of the angel seated on the rock is testimony to Jesus's laughter, and His great love for surprises. I love to think that every angel in Heaven wanted that assignment, the best assignment any angel could ever have, to roll back the stone and sit upon it -- The Lord turns the tombstones into park benches.


The seal of death -- became the seat of life; the seal of despair -- became the seat of joy; the seal of darkness -- became the seat of light. The very stone which was used to seal Jesus in the tomb became the seat where the resurrection was first proclaimed. Our Lord specializes in surprising outcome. He is the Lord of the miraculous and the impossible. He loves to bring life from death, light from darkness, and good from evil.

In Christ the Risen Lord,

Brown

http://youtu.be/3x2fSxOeij4