Brown's Daily Word 3/28/16

    Praise the Lord for Resurrection Sunday.  The Lord blessed us with His favor, grace, and power in His House, with His people yesterday.  It was brilliant.  I woke up early this morning around 4:00 AM and gazed through the window towards the  Eastern skies.  It was calm, and becoming colorful.  As the morning began to dawn in its breathtaking beauty I said, "Was it a morning like this?"  

"

    Was it a morning like this
    When the sun still hid from Jerusalem?
    And Mary rose from her bed,
    To tend to the Lord she thought was dead?

    Was it a morning like this,
    When Mary walked down from Jerusalem?
    And two Angels stood at the tomb,
    Bearers of news she would hear soon?

    Did the grass sing?
    Did the earth rejoice to feel You again?

    Over and over like a trumpet underground
    Did the earth seem to pound, "He is risen!"
    Over and over in a never-ending round
    "He is risen! Hallelujah, hallelujah!"

    The Easter celebration at our church  was festive and anointed, with lots of Easter Hymns and songs.  Some of the children presented a praise dance.  After the Easter celebration we gathered at the parsonage for an Easter banquet.  Alice, one of the best cooks in town, prepared with much love a very traditional Easter banquet with assortments foods including pastries and desserts.  Our daughters could not come home for Easter this year.  We had our Indian family, who joined us with our nieces and nephews.  We also had some friends from out of town who joined us for the dinner.  It was all sumptuous and delightful.

    I have been blessed and influenced by British Missionaries, Theologians,  Historians, Traditions, and culture, with roots which go back to Biblical traditions.  They say that when Winston Churchill planned his funeral to take place in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, he wanted to have the great hymns of the church and the elegant Anglican liturgy for the service, but one of his requests was very untraditional.  He asked that a bugler be positioned high in the dome of Saint Paul’s, and after the benediction the sound of “Taps,” be played, which is the universal trumpet call indicating that day is over.  But then he planned a dramatic twist.  As soon as “Taps” was finished, another bugler, placed on the other side of the great dome, played “Reveille” — “It’s time to get up.  It’s time to get up.  It’s time to get up in the morning.” 

    The great message of Easter is that, at the end of history, the last note will not be “Taps,” but “Reveille.”  God will say, as the trumpets sound, “It’s time to get up.  It’s time to get up.  It’ time to get up in the morning.”  The Bible says, “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).  What better news could there be?  What could give our lives more significance?

    In our culture we are so attached to this world, with all of the things that we have deemed to be "good", that we think very little of eternity and value it even less.  Jesus came to offer us abundant and Eternal life.  Jesus taught us that eternity is everything.  Whenever He  does something, it lasts  for Eternity.  The life He gives is eternal life.  The Bible says, “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17).  Paul wrote, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).  This is the promise of Jesus himself, who said, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).

    Easter tells us that what our Lord  does is eternal, and we are surprised that our lives have significance.  It tells us that our Lord does the unexpected — We are surprised by joy.  He always does the unexpected, and when He  does, we are surprised by joy.  The Risen Lord  comes into our monotony, into our despair and hopelessness, and changes everything.  Just when we think that nothing new will ever happen, the Risen Lord shows up, and when he does He brings His  joy with Him.

    He is Risen.

     He is Risen Indeed.

In His Grace,

  Brown

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