Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Rising sun

Sunday, April 1, 2018

From John 20 and Mark 16
On the first day of the week, Mary Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb ... On entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and he said to them, "Do not be afraid. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. But he is not here. He is risen!"

Oh, the readers!

On Holy Thursday night at church my friend Mary Lou read the Passover story from Exodus 12. She spoke as God, announcing his judgment on Egypt. When she read, "I, the LORD!" it was as if the words caught her up into the clouds. They took my breath away.

Then at an evening Good Friday service, Virginia read Matthew 27:51-52. She often uses a walker, and it was hard for her to get on stage, so Pastor Renee carried the microphone down to her. Virginia could barely get the words out through her sobs. As the temple veil was rent and the earth shook, as the rocks split and the tombs broke open, her heart broke too, and so did mine. Shouldn't we weep at the death of Jesus, at the violence of our lives, for victims and persecutors and all of us so certain of ourselves? Whatever else I heard that night was filtered through tears. I didn't know Virginia, but she knew Jesus, and she brought me along to be with him beneath his cross.

And on Saturday, watching The Passion of the Cross, there stood Simon of Cyrene, 900 miles from home on pilgrimage for Passover, conscripted to carry Jesus' cross and complaining to the Roman soldiers, "Remember, I'm an innocent man forced to carry the cross of a condemned man."

Carrying the cross together, their faces are inches apart. With one eye swollen shut, Jesus is leading Simon in a crash course called, "Love your enemy." The path up Golgotha is steep, and Simon's face contorts with effort and pain. At the top, together they fall to their knees below the weight of Jesus' cross. Simon cannot stop looking into Jesus' face as the soldiers shout, "Get away now, you're free to go!" Simon won't move until they throw him away. "Go on! Go on!" He weeps at the innocence of this condemned man, Jesus, and goes to find his son.

So here we are on Easter Sunday, standing beside the grave with Mary, listening to the young man's proclamation and running with her back to the disciples shouting at the top of our lungs, "He's alive, he's alive! He's alive and he has risen, heaven's gates are open wide."

In these days before Easter, we have not been preparing for some minor miracle. Jesus now lives in what Paul called a soma pneumatikon,, a spiritual body, both completely physical and totally spiritual. There can be no proof of this, only witnesses. We cannot imagine or understand such a thing, but we can believe the witnesses. John Updike knows his own temporizing ways and warns us:

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us WALK THROUGH THE DOOR.

This is the Day of Days. God has reclaimed the earth and all his children from the Powers of Sin and Death. The sun has risen on the victory of Jesus, our Savior forever. We are free. Jesus is alive, and so are we.

Now, Lord. This is when we fall on our knees, and then down on our faces. This is the time for us to weep with thankfulness and joy, that you, Jesus, are our friend, and you laid down your life for us. Then you took it up again just as you said you would, and now, Lord, we can follow you into freedom and peace forever.

Devotions Archive

Rising sun

Sunday, April 1, 2018