Why did Jesus draw near to those two men on that Sunday? Because He wanted to turn their sorrow into joy, their helplessness into hopefulness -- and He did. He can do the same for you -- because He is alive today, still coming to people with broken relationships, shattered dreams, unfulfilled aspirations, and giving them a new beginning. Jesus is the Lord of new beginnings. If you have seen the worst, then start looking for the best, because when there's been death, resurrection is just around the corner.
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe God wants to bless you real big, that He wants to show you His love in ways beyond your highest expectation? Does God's Word give you any indication that it could happen? It certainly does. And He certainly will. He is the Lord of new beginnings. "Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (
1 Pet. 1:3). A living hope is one that will never die.
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I received a letter this week from members of my congregation. They said, "Eighteen years ago, Resurrection morning, we answered our phone to the words, 'You can come and take your baby home today'." This baby, born Ash Wednesday, had lived six weeks in an incubator and was still a half pound too light at four-and-one-half pounds to be released to us. And yet now he was coming home. David Paul, an unbelievable gift to our family that day. Earlier we had also been called for David's twin brother, but to take him for burial - 37 days of lights, talking, laughing, of lying naked, of crying but making no sound, of wearing a blindfold, of being fed by a tube to the stomach, and of finally being surgically implanted with a tube in the neck which at last brought infection and death. For Nathan, wasn't it more of a passing from death unto life than from life unto death? John carved a cross which stands in our little backyard garden: "Even so in Christ shall all be made alive." And these words have become a jubilant song from Handel's Messiah echoing in our family the last eighteen years -- "Even so in Christ, shall all be made alive." Yes, our baby is dead, but even so....
Yes, there is death. We face it every day. Paul said that we are always being delivered up to death. But because of it, there is more life. There is no resurrection without death, but resurrection is just as certain as death.
Are you living life in the past tense or in the future tense? May the resurrection of Jesus Christ give you cope for the present and hope for the future.