Easter Faith

Easter faith is a pretty faith. We dress up our Easter faith today. We put it in a new suit or put a
brightly-colored bonnet on it. It is pretty and easy. Perhaps it is too much so.

The Easter faith of Jesus' disciples was not pretty or easy. Theirs was a faith of a bloody cross and a stone-covered tomb. Theirs was a faith of sacrifice.

Actually, during the early encounters of that first resurrection morning, the word of the hour was not "faith," but "doubt." Consider all of the doubt which surrounded that first Easter:
Thomas doubted until he saw with his own eyes, Peter refused to believe the women who returned from the early-morning trip to the tomb, Mary thought she was speaking with the gardener because it "couldn't be" Jesus, and the two pilgrims on the road to Emmaus spent hours walking with Jesus, but didn't recognize him in their own hour of doubt.

Not only did these people doubt the actual event of the resurrection, but they also doubted the promises which Jesus had made to them beforehand. Promises about being raised to life on the third day. Promises of reunion after three days in the earth. So many things are easier to believe. So many promises are more easily kept.

The disciples were overwhelmed by the nature of those promises. They were impossible promises. Incredible. Inconceivable. As dawn broke on that first Resurrection Sunday, everything the disciples knew about life and death said that Jesus was not coming back.

Eventually, the memories of Good Friday faded into the realities of Easter Sunday. By the end of the day, these same people rejoiced not because of the nature of the promises, but because of the nature of the Person who made the promises.

Jesus has made impossible, incredible, inconceivable promises to us today as well. Sometimes, our circumstances in life lead us to the same kind of doubt the disciples experienced. We doubt His promises because, like them, we lose sight of Him.

During our darkest days, when we see only a blood-stained cross and a stone-covered tomb before us, we need to summon strength from our own Easter faith. A faith that believes Jesus' promises not only when it is easy to do so, but also when it requires a sacrifice.

Easter faith believes in Easter promises. Easter promises bring life from death. As our lives become Easter lives, doubt disappears, replaced by a "peace that passeth understanding' and a certainty of eternity.

Happy Easter!

Pastor Greg