A Blessed Easter

      Greetings to you all in the name of our Risen Lord!  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend.  I had a great weekend with the family.  Erin and I left Friday night after church and got to Nate and Kari's around ten.  Saturday we spent the day playing cards, playing football with the boys, drinking, and talking.  It was a fun day.  Then Sunday morning we went to church at St. Paul's and it was a beautiful service with the choir, organ, trumpet, drums, and the celebration hymns of Easter.  I cannot help but think the joys of hundreds of faithful Christians all singing praises to God to the beautiful sound of instruments is only a tiny glimpse of what Heaven and the new creation will be like.  It's a fun thing to think about and hope for when that day comes.
     Erin had a good weekend meeting the family and didn't leave running away so I will take that as a good sign. The family all liked her and realized she fits in well.  She even won a majority of the card games on Saturday.  It was a successful weekend of introduction and welcoming.
     Preaching Maunday Thursday went well.  My friends Chris and Jes came along with Erin and me.  It was fun to have them in the congregation.  The attendance was not real high, but more than I expected.  I am enjoying preaching more and more each time.
     Call day is only four weeks away.  The quarter is almost half over and it just does not seem possible.  Time goes too fast, and I fear it will only go faster now that the weather is getting nicer.  I am still playing softball and golf each week.  Not much else is new around here.  A week from today a group of us are going to the Cardinals game.
      My thought for the day comes from a paper I had to write for Exodus.  We were assigned two chapters from Exodus and told to very briefly come up with one main Gospel theme from that chapter.  The Gospel theme is supposed to fit with the entire chapter, the entire Exodus narrative, and the entire Gospel narrative of Christ.  For this first paper we were assigned two chapters, 14 and 15.  Here is what I came up with for these two chapters.

            The biggest element of these two chapters is water; however, the event I want to focus on is the changing of the water at Marah from bitter to sweet at the end of chapter 15.  When Moses threw the log into the bitter water that the thirsty Israelites were craving, God made it sweet.  This fits into the immediate narrative of these two chapters along with the entire Exodus narrative.  It fits in the immediate narrative because as Pharaoh and his army are bearing down on the Israelites who were cornered against the Red Sea, God turned this bitter situation into a sweet one.  Instead of their only choices being getting cut in half by swords or drowning in the sea, God let them cross the sea on dry ground and drowned all of Pharaoh’s army permanently destroying their old enemy. 

            This fits in the Exodus narrative because God continuously turns bitter situations into sweet events for the Israelites.  However, it also fits because the overall narrative is God freeing the people from slavery, a very bitter life where they served Pharaoh rather than God, and bringing them into His presence, a sweet life where they can serve Him. 

            This fits into the ministry of Jesus in several ways.  Each and every miracle Jesus performs turns some sort of bitter crippling, disease, or even death into sweet healing or life.  However, it fits in the grander scene of His ministry through the cross.  His death on the cross seemed like the bitterest blow of all to Jesus’ disciples, friends, and all followers.  This seemed like the bitter blow that could not be turned sweet.  It appeared that death, the bitterest thing we taste in this life time, had won.  However, the same God who turned that bitter water for those thirsty Israelites sweet is the same God who turned the bitter death of Christ sweet when He brought Him back to life.  Not only was it sweet because it established Christ’s reign as the one true eternal King, but also because it set all children of God free from the bitter slavery of their sin.  God used a log to turn bitter water sweet for the Israelites.  He used two logs in the shape of a cross to turn the bitter broken relationship of God and his sinful creatures into sweet redemption.  This redemption’s full sweetness will not be tasted until that Final Day when Christ comes again.  So until then we continue to taste the bitterness of this present evil age, but we have the hope of that redemption because God gave us a foretaste of the sweetness in Christ’s resurrection.  He truly has turned the bitterness of sin into sweet justification that is the now not yet justification we believe in.  That day will be our Marah but an infinity times sweeter!   

      Remember just because the day of Easter is over, the hope and joy we have in Easter lives in us each and every day.  Christ is Risen and our faith is solidly grounded in this truth, so live each day in the joy of your faith, serving the God who loved us enough to send His Son to die and rise again in order to claim us as His children.  Praise Him for the loving merciful God He is!  

Dear Heavenly Father, 

Thank you so much for sending Your Son to be our Savior.  Thank you for loving us enough to claim us as Your children.  Please give us Your Spirit so that we may live each and every day serving You and witnessing the Easter hope and joy we have in our Risen Christ.  In the name of our Savior who lives. Amen.