3.31-Have you lost someone and Easter doesn't seem real?

3.31-

Last Easter maybe you didn’t know how much you would need this Easter. Some of you lost a mother suddenly who was not supposed to pass for another few years. Could someone be reading this that had a father here last year, gone from this earth this year? I wonder if some member of your family got a cancer diagnosis and was gone in less than a year. Maybe some of you were still in the shock of a death of a fatal accident that happened a year or so ago and hardly experienced Easter at all last year. You were not out of your shock and into the sting and empty heart.

If you have lost someone recently I want to say to you there is one who understands loss. His Son hung upon a cross and breathed his last breath. They took down His body and laid it in the grave. Many did not understand what had just happened. Peter had denied he even knew Him. Some went sleep as he prayed intensely. His own disciples did not understand what was happening here.

Then on Easter morning everything changed. Death is not the end. Death is the beginning of a new kind of life being completely loved and comforted by God. Death is the end of the weeping. You have wept for a year or more perhaps. Jesus said to those weeping for him, to weep for themselves. He was finishing the weeping and moving back to the richness of life with His Father.

I have lost my mother and father as well as my in laws. My grandparents are gone. I have lost my brother and a couple of nieces. I have lost a bunch of uncles and aunts and cousins. A number of the best Christian servants I have ever known did not live to get close to their expected date of death. I wept when I lost them and a feeling of sadness still is with me, but there is another feeling. A feeling of hope.

Things changed on Easter. The man who had denied Jesus became one of the boldest witnesses for Him that this world has seen. I cannot explain that change except the empty tomb of Easter morning.

I will look forward to try to finish strong as my beloved family and friends have done and when the work is over I believe in the promise of Jesus. He has gone to prepare a home for us where there the tears will be wiped away by our amazing Father. He loved us enough to allow His Son to come here and die for all of us. On the cross He traded our sins for His righteousness. It worked. Happy Easter.

John 20.

20 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene *came early to the tomb, while it *was still dark, and *saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. 2 So she *ran and *came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and *said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” 3 So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. 4 The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; 5 and stooping and looking in, he *saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. 6 And so Simon Peter also *came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he *saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. 9 For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. 10 So the disciples went away again to their own homes.

Larry Wishard

3.31.18