New Life

 

It was a long winter.  And Spring has been slow in coming.  However...the signs of life renewed, life emerging, are showing up more each day in the once gray and drear landscapes of East Central Illinois.

Today we celebrated Easter.  In so many ways, the parallels of Spring and Easter are inseparable. Death before Life restored. The renewal of life seen clearly in the changing seasons is a still only just a glimpse at the larger story of life restored in the context of Easter.

We sometimes forget that when Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross, his physical death was also a dying of hopes and dreams of those who loved him.  The dark winter of the soul surely defined each one who had only days before followed their Lord as he triumphantly  had entered Jerusalem.

But then came Sunday!  Jesus conquered death Easter Morning.  Despair became hope...Faith was renewed.  And unlike the new life we see with the changing of the seasons...New Life in Christ  is a present and future promise.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

John 11:25-26

Easter is the source of Hope in my life.  Experiencing the death of those we love brings the promise of resurrection and restoration into sharp focus.  Joy which is experienced through tears here and now will be perfected someday.  

I thought especially about the implications of Easter as I drove by our High School last week.  There is a tree that was planted in memory of Greg in May of 2003.  This past week it was in full bloom.  I had to stop, take some pictures, and pray a prayer of thanksgiving for this tangible reminder of the promise of new life...all because of the love of God and the transformational power of the resurrection.

Amazing Love

Graham Kendrick

My Lord, what love is this that pays so dearly
That I the guilty one, may go free

Amazing love oh what sacrifice
The Son of God giv’n for me
My debt He pays and my death He dies
That I might live, that I might live

And so they watched Him die
Despised, rejected but
Oh the blood He shed flowed for me

And now this love of Christ
Shall flow like rivers
Come wash your guilt away, live again!