By W. Frank Harrington
For I bore my cross, you know.4
We are comforted this Easter because our Lord always keeps His promises. We are confident this Easter because He always goes before us, but there is a third word, and that word is ...
III. Commitment!
He is always challenging us to make the foundational choices.
The angel who met the women at the tomb gave them a task, "Now go and give this message to His disciples, and to Peter" (
Mark 16:7). Note that: "and to Peter." That is a note of grace for Peter. It should be a reminder of grace for you and me, that God is always working to make disciples out of imperfection like us. Yes, tell Peter, too. I know he denied Me, I know that he swore that he never knew Me. I know that it is more shocking because he was the disciple who loudly proclaimed, "they all abandon you, I will never do that." Yes, I know he fell asleep in Gethsemane. But the good news is for you and all others, including Peter. You can be my disciples if you make the commitment.
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We are all given the task of telling the story of His "aliveness." The youth choir in this church sings a wonderful song, He Is Alive! The women are so frightened that they tell no one initially (
Mark 16:8). The task has not changed during all of the centuries of the Christian church. It is still our challenge and our choice to "go and tell." That immediately confronts you and me with two realities:
1. The first is Obedience. The women, shocked and frightened, did not tell anyone, including the disciples. What's your excuse? What's your excuse? The Bible says that "to obey is better than sacrifice." There is a Charlie Brown cartoon that I saw recently that I liked, lucy asks:
"Why do you think we are put on earth, Charlie Brown?"
"Well," he says, "To make others happy."
Lucy says:
"I don't think I'm making anyone very happy... Of course, nobody's making me very happy, either."
The last panel has Lucy screaming:
"Somebody is not doing their job."5
One could not look at the American Church today without raising the question as to our obedience to our instructions "to go and to tell" the story of His Resurrection. Our lives should be examples of what it means to be the "light of the world," and yet in any direction you look there is so much darkness.
Maya Angelou, in her most recent book Even the Stars Look Lonesome, dedicates it to the children who will grow to maturity in the 21st century. She then gives them and us this charge:
"Their charge will be to eliminate warfare, to promote equality, to exile disease, to establish justice and increase joy. In fact, to make this a perfect world."6
She sees this generation as a sign of hope. So do I, but it is a hope based on our obedience to our calling to share, to tell and to embrace the story.
If we respond to the challenge of a deepening commitment and make the choices that are required, beginning with obedience, we must note a second reality.