With all the negativity permeating our daily lives and screaming to be heard, do you sometimes feel overwhelmed – that the tasks before you require more energy than you have? Perhaps, the joy surrounding Easter Sunday provided a brief respite from the storm; however, two weeks later the joy has diminished, and all those pressures are again clamoring for our attention. Left unchecked, we become vulnerable targets for anxiety, despair, and even depression; however, there is a solution — God wishes to replace our emphasis upon the celebration of a single day with the assurance of a lifestyle of joy and power!
In the past, when I prepared to celebrate the day that Christ arose from the dead, invariably an unusual, conflicting memory from long ago surfaced:
I was between eight and ten years old, Sunday School was over, and I, along with a group of boys, was preparing to march inside and be a part of Big Church. And, then it happened! With the sun shining brightly on a wonderful Florida day, the excited chatter was pierced by the remarks of a tall, thin, balding man. Somewhat of a recluse, the brother of a prominent lady in the church — rumor had it that he had once been a preacher — uttered words that fell like a dark cloud on the bubbling happiness: “Boys, this day is always a sad time for me; my little girl died on Easter!”
Instantly, my cheerfulness vanished, and when the doors opened, I made my way inside with two troubling irreconcilable thoughts:
- Easter is a time of glorious hope and joy!
- This unusual man’s hope had been shattered, and he was filled with sadness!
Twenty-five years later, in the summer of 1978, the discomfort created by those two opposing cognitions evaporated in a moment when my young wife interrupted my sleep with a loud proclamation:
- “Jeffery is not dead!”
- “He is alive!”
Having lost our young son in an automobile accident a few weeks earlier, my first impulse was to believe that grief had driven her over the edge. Then, she excitedly read these words:
…even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, … (Luke 20:37, 38 NIV).
From that day forward, as a team, Linda and I focused much of our life’s work upon helping others grasp a wonderful and transformative truth: The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ which occurred 2000 years ago is an irrefutable fact that cannot be denied. Furthermore, it serves as a foundational reality from which all biblical truth flows; however, it is a huge mistake to settle for a single day of celebration and remembrance. In two magnificent prayers, the Apostle Paul outlines God’s intention for the body of Christ to continually celebrate and participate in the Resurrection Story:
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, … (Ephesians 1:17 -20 NIV emphasis added).
… I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, … (Ephesians 3:17 -20 NIV emphasis added).
The picture accompanying today’s blog was taken five days before Easter 2021. At that time, Alzheimer’s had already destroyed much of Linda’s capacity to reason; however, earlier in the day, Shelli, her beloved Activities Director at Legacy Village of Cleveland, had printed the guiding focus of Linda’s ministry on the banner which she is holding. Two years later on March 23, 2023, she went home to be with her Lord; hope was forever replaced by fulfillment as she grasped the totality of Paul’s prayer – “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, …”
Ron Harvard Ministries 