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I sit this morning at my window looking at the first signs of life, long dormant through a long winter’s sleep. Fresh, crisp blades of green grass peek gingerly through the snow crusted ground and the first new buds of spring, with a blanket of white enshrouding them, on tree limbs that no longer look dead, are yawning, showing chlorophyll laden tongues that will eventually bloom into glorious splendor, providing a refuge from the heat of the summer and an abundance of life within its verdant cover. The promise of life surrounds me on this brilliant resurrection morning as I ponder and reflect on the meaning of this heaven sent day.

For me this day has nothing to do with pagan bunnies, the fertility rites symbolized in colored eggs and chocolate sweets. The only sweets I am reflecting on are the sweets provided by my Savior who gave the true promise of a renewal of life. I think of families sitting in church singing praises to their God and King, who burst the bands of death in our behalf, so that we may all live again, after our own brief respite from our fleshly tabernacles, to rise once more unto glories untold in the morning of the first resurrection. And then, as this thought crosses my mind, my consciousness is transported to the final days of my Lord’s ministry where this King of Kings rode into Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, not in great glory on an Arabian Stallion, but humbly on the back off an ass fulfilling the prophecy which says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass (Zech 9:9).

Later as Jesus celebrated the Passover with the traditional unleavened bread, bitter herbs and fruit of the vine He was already suffering with the knowledge that one of His own would betray Him. I can almost feel the heartbreak as Jesus told his apostles, “one of you which eateth with me shall betray me. And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto Him one by one, Is it I?” I can almost see the dark eyes of Judas Iscariot, averted from those of our Savior so as not to feel the searing and sorrowful scorn that must have accompanied His gaze, as he continued the charade by asking, “Is it I?” and knowing full well that it was. How our Lord must have sorrowed for Him knowing that He was now lost and destined to become a son of perdition. But this was just the beginning of the sorrows that He was foreordained to endure.

Now my minds eye is a witness at Gethsemane. The apostles at some distance from our Lord are sleeping, even as they had promised to keep watch, while the Savior of mankind is in deep and impassioned supplication to His Father, enduring, first hand, the suffering off all who had already lived, all that were then living and all that were yet to be born, being pressed by the tremendous guilt of the entire world so much so that great drops of blood were excreted from every pour. He was feeling the presses of Gethsemane’s name sake as the crushing weight of the world come down upon Him, pleading with His Father that if there were any other way to let the cup pass from Him. Even with the amount of suffering He was undergoing at that time, still He left the situation in the hands of His omniscient Father. A last and ultimate sacrifice for the sins of an entire world!

And then, came the betrayer, who, with a mock kiss delivered His God into the hands of the executioners. Thirty pieces of silver paid, never to be spent! A son of perdition hanging by the neck from some justice-bound tree! A grisly deed done!

Throughout His trials Christ stood mostly silent. He knew that His hour had come and that He now must finish what He was sent to do. I tremble, as in my mind I am witness to each stroke of the hammer, driving metal spikes into His hands and feet. I want to rush the executioners and deliver my Lord from this terrible anguish but I cannot move other than the incessant shaking within my body. I feel my Lord’s fleeting glance directed my way assuring me that this must be and it is all right. While He is suffering, I feel that He is still thinking about us, and not in His own excruciating pain as flesh is torn and bones move asunder. He knows that in so doing He will save us. Carrying His own cross toward Golgotha he is spit upon, beaten with rods and whips, and mocked with every step until He can no longer walk and another is mercifully and blessedly appointed to carry His cross for Him the last bit of the way.

Being raised up on the cross at the “place of the skull” between two common thieves “one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:39-43).

And then the entire Earth was engulfed in darkness and the ground shook and there was great destruction upon all the land as God, the Father, I imagine, not being able to bear the tremendous agony of His Son, withdrew into the furthest recesses of His universe, causing Jesus to scream out, “My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me” (Mark 15:34). A malevolent onlooker, devoid of all compassion, then runs and gives Jesus vinegar to drink. With a loud cry Jesus then gives up the ghost, saying, “Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit” (Luke 23:46).

For three days the apostles of the Lord wandered like a ship in the night being tossed about by a storm, supposing that it was over, and we must assume that the thief on the Christ accompanied Jesus to a place set aside for the spirits of men, where they await the resurrection (1 Peter 3:18-21; 4:1-6). Not heaven, for on the third day after the Christ’s crucifixion Mary Magdalene came to the tomb of Christ. Upon arriving and seeing that the stone covering the tomb had been rolled away she became very concerned and asking, whom she supposed to be the gardener, what they had done with the body of her Lord was answered, “Mary”. Recognizing the voice of her Lord she turned and said, “Master” and ran toward Him. But Jesus kindly rebuked her and told her, “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:16,17).

Later, the disciples of Jesus were gathered together and Jesus came unto them and let them feel the wounds in his flesh and ate with them so that they would know that He was no longer dead, but was resurrected, not as a spirit but flesh and bone (Luke 24:37-43).

So now as I look out of my window at the new life forming on this beautiful spring morning that is set aside as a reflection of life and resurrection and as a symbol, to me, that all, though dead, will live again, just as the grass dies and is buried beneath the snow but is also renewed in the dawning of a new spring.

My testimony is that Jesus Christ, indeed, died for the sins of all and was resurrected and lives again, seated on the right hand of the Almighty God, His and our Father in heaven. He lives and this I know beyond any doubt. And it is in His wonderful name, even Jesus, the Christ, that I expound these eternal truths. Amen.