“The Day”

EASTER SUNDAY, APR. 23, 2000, 5:35 AM
FARM, STUDY

Yes, o son, I roused you from sleep at an early hour for a Sunday morning. You got up… then went back to bed… but here you are, as I purposed you to be. It is the morning called Easter, you have re-read the three Teachings I, Holy Spirit, have given you this week, and now you await My further observations, with darkness outside… and Prudence barking.

It will be a “strange” Easter in that you and Lenore will be without family members… no small children engaged in an exciting Easter egg hunt. Oh, you shall go to Church and be “reminded, yet again” of My resurrection as the living, breathing, “eating” Christ. I suffered and died on the cross, My dead body was taken from the cross, laid in a rock tomb, and a great stone was rolled in place to seal the opening.

But the remembrance of this day is that on this morning, of the 3rd day, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty, and I was back among the living… resurrected. Anatomically this makes no sense, of course. A body that has been without oxygen and circulation of blood for almost 40 hours cannot return to full functioning. So it becomes a mystical “story.” It couldn’t have happened, but it did. There is no need to try to explain it. Many very practical people in your culture will hear this now-familiar story this morning – in Scripture read, in sermons preached, in anthems and hymns sung. ( 6:00 / 6:03 )

It is an “impossible” story, but you just accept, as the prime Christian “happening” of each year, that it did occur, and I am alive and well, as the risen Jesus Christ. The conclusion, of course, is that after some time back in the earth, with wounds still evident, I did ascend up from the earth to heaven. And… yet… I still am alive and active here in the earth. Your son Peter did see Me, and I did greet him especially as he “came across” after that accident.

Now I do have to note that your culture now has Easter eggs (real eggs colored and many sizes of candy ones), Easter bunnies, and new Easter “outfits”. You usually had an Easter egg hunt for the grandchildren… exciting but not well-related to the original Easter story. It also is a unique “holiday” in that it is always on Sunday (which, for most folks, is a holiday, anyway), but on whatever date is determined by the first full moon after the vernal equinox. My, My… I suppose this “no-fixed date” is in the spirit of “I died… was dead… but came back to bodily life again… then I ascended, but am still here.”

( 6:22 / 10:56 PM )

The day of Easter has now passed, and it is dark outside again. The regular church service was nearly full, and the tables were just barely sufficient for the fellowship with food, in the familiar basement room, after the service. There was a good spirit in the group, to some extent encouraged by the cry of the morning, “Hallelujah, He is risen!”

Yes, after all these years of being an active, practicing Christian you feel a bit strange in focusing on the betrayal, the arrest, the sentence, the crucifixion… and then, finally, again, the resurrection. It’s like… you know how the story “comes out.” The sacrificial death was “meant to be.” I did it for you. Now you take opportunities to serve others, which could include dying.