Easter week is very meaningful to me and to so many. Starting with Palm Sunday.We recognize Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the people celebrating as he rode into town on a donkey. In actuality the people were celebrating that Jesus would take control of the city and end Roman oppression. Of course they got it wrong. Some understood why he came but not even all the disciples were fully aware of his mission.
The next day Jesus went to the temple and saw the people changing money and selling doves for the sacrifice. He drove them all out. The next day Tuesday he went to the temple again and was confronted by the chief priests and the elders. They challenged Him as to what authority He was doing those things. They left confused as to where He was coming from..Wednesday He and his disciples were preparing for the Passover. He tells many parables at this time.
Thursday was the Passover Feast. Jesus gathered his disciples in the uppper room and gave them the new covenant. Then He passed the bread and the cup and said “this is my body and this is my blood which will be sacraficed for you and for many” He then led them to the Garden of Gethsemane where He prayed for God to take the burden from Him. But in a statement that all should live by He said “Father take this cup from me, yet but not my will but what you will”
Jesus was tried and convicted. The Romans didn’t want anything to do with what happened to Him, so they turned him over to the crowd. On Friday they nailed Him to a tree to die. Again He stated a lession for all of us “Father forgive them for the know not what they do”. The nineth hour Jesus cried out, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” Then He said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” Then He died. He was buried in a borrowed grave.
As Paul Harvey says, now the rest of the story.. To Ilustrate I relate this story…..It was on February 27th 1991 at the height of Desert Storm that Ruth Dillow receved a very said message from the Pentegon. It stated that her son Clayton Carpenter, Private First Class has stepped on a mine in Kuwait and was dead. Ruth Dillow wrote, ” I can’t begin to describe my grief and shock, it was almost more than I could stand. For three days I wept. For three days I expressed anger and loss. For three days people tried to comfort me., to no avail because the loss was too great.”
3 days after receiving that call, the telephone rang . Thevoice on the other end said “Mom its me, I am alive!” Ruth Dillow said “I couldn’t believe it at first, and then I recognized his voice, and he really was alive. The message three days earlier was a mistake” She said ” I laughed, I cried, I felt like turning cart wheels, because my son who I thought was dead was really alive. I am sure none of you can really understand how I felt”
Prhaps we can’t feel what Ruth felt but if we walked the pages of the New Testament we have some idea because they (we) experienced some of the same things. We have heard the biblical account many times before. But we who are here today need to have the same emotions that Ruth Dillow and the women at the well had. Christ was dead and now he is alive! We should be laughing, crying and shouting Hallalujah! Happy Easter! Amen.
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