Not Without Hope: Musings on Easter
My husband and I gathered our girls on the back porch this morning to watch the sun rise, read scripture, sing and pray. Clouds clogged the sky, diffusing the light so that dawn dawned slowly and almost imperceptibly. But by the end, light lit their precious faces.
We read Romans: "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you."
We sang: "Oh, church, come stand in the light. The glory of God has defeated the night!"
We looked around at daylight, everything colored, visible, as it should be and said, "Jesus is alive."
Alive...
That means a lot to me this year--this year with its heavy, daily rain and cold mornings. After too much death, too close. After a long season of depression. After witnessing marriages crumble after much, much trying and crying and prayer. After walking friends through disease and children through disappointment. After watching a war unfold and Christians die martyrs' deaths.
This morning I welcome the light.
Last week I drove my kids to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in South Austin. We went because I know something about rain. I know a wet, sad, dreary winter works something magic in the soil. So we drove along bluebonnet-strewn highways to fields of flowers--all colors and types.
We saw what blooms after three days in a tomb.
This morning I'll leave you with the words my husband spoke at my grandfather's funeral, words that seem perfect for Easter musing...
We are the people who are not without hope.
We are the people who say goodbye with tears expecting to say hello someday. Who expect to embrace after years, ages, apart, and then discover eternity together.
We are the people who have been rescued. Who found someone--the only one--who couldn’t be bullied by death and who would somehow protect us as well....not from all of the shrapnel of death, but from any final, lethal blow.
We are the people who found Jesus, who were found by Jesus. Because of him, Bob Martin is not just our friend or our father or our husband, but our brother, our fellow warrior, and now our predecessor--our scout--one who’s gone before us and will wait for us.
May we live lives driven by the same robust faith that drove Bob Martin.