Easter

Here we are a day away from Easter. It is beautiful outside. Wide blue sky, bright green grass, yellow daffodils have bloomed. The trees are starting to bud. It won't be long before they burst out with life. But on this day several generations ago, on this day before the Resurrection; regardless of the weather conditions, it was a very dark and sad day for all who called themselves followers of Christ, the Messiah. I can't imagine their sense of loss, their chasm of hopelessness. The One whom they had put all of their trust, love, hope, dreams, their everything in was gone. And only on a couple of occasions previous to this day had they seen that death didn't mean finality. But now, the One who had ended those funerals, those days of mourning, it is He who is gone. Despair deeper than anything they had experienced was engulfing them. How could this be? "I am the Resurrection and the Life" was dead. They had seen the torturous execution like a slow motion replay reel. After that kind of beating, after losing that much blood, after suffocating on the Roman cross, everything they had ever known was over! He could bring the dead back to life with just a word but who would bring Him back? Who could possibly have power over this kind of death? Sleepless, sorrow filled, questioning minds could never imagine what the next sunrise would bring. But as the sun broke the surface of the horizon on that first Easter morning, everything, THEIR EVERYTHING changed forever. To be continued...