itsawonderfilledlife

He is risen
(do I hear, he is risen indeed?).

This is the day we sing with joy “he is alive” in various worship songs and hymns.

We have been immersed in the days leading up to this one.

We may have given up things and practises in our lives in the weeks approaching Easter Sunday.

We followed Jesus life from his baptism, to temptations, to miracles and teachings.

We have envisioned him, sitting on a donkey, riding through the excited crowds triumphantly.

We have been reminded of his love for his disciples and how, in the last moments with them, he taught them how to love one another and others in picking up his baton.

We felt the knot in our throats as he dipped his bread into the same bowl as Judas, who would betray Jesus … and his own soul.

We would remember him in the garden, tortured by thoughts of what was to come for us all … even those who could not stay awake with him.

We would know the filth of our own hands as Pilate washed his … a dirt that no amount of water could cleanse.

We would wince at the thoughts of his torture, humiliation and the agony of the cross … the cross that he had to carry (though it was never his cross … he carried our cross … mine and yours). The cross carried through the streets of that same triumphal city, same crowds … from cheers to jeers in less than a week.

We would be silenced at the thought of the earth’s quake, the curtain torn … finished.

silence

silence

silence

Then, the sun began to rise this morning. Our eyes opened to a new day, a reminder that all things have been made new.

The rock was moved, the tomb empty.

Jesus is alive!

The suffering and death have accomplished something miraculous … not just his rising, but his rising for us.

Oh happy day,
happy day
I’ll never be the same
forever I am changed

“There are the good things of this world, the hard things of this world, and the best things of this world—God’s love, glory, holiness, beauty. The Bible’s teaching is that the road to the best things is not through the good things but usually through the hard things, as Jesus himself shows us in Philippians 2:5–11. There is no message more contrary to the way the world understands life or more subversive to its values. ” Tim Keller