To Celebrate the Empty Tomb, You Must First Accept Your Need For the Cross
Once in a while we hit a hard bump in the road here at Mercy House. Sometimes it is just a leak in the roof or a copier that needs repair. But every now and then it is something that just breaks your heart. Last week one of our neighbors here had an accidental overdose. He is a part of our Tuesday night Bible study and a regular at lunch on Council street. When we heard the news he was in intensive care and on a ventilator, it didn’t sound too hopeful.The enemy that our neighbor was fighting has one purpose - to steal, kill and destroy. But everyone was praying hard that on this night Jesus would leave the 99 sheep and go after the one.
It seems only right that as we are preparing to celebrate our risen King, the prayers we lift up for our neighbor are the same prayers that we lift up for ourselves. Lord, give us a second chance, make us new, make us clean and make us Yours. As Easter Sunday approaches it is important to understand that we can’t truly celebrate the empty tomb if we don’t first take time to acknowledge our desperate need for the cross. Jesus sat in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified and it was there that He decided that He couldn’t imagine going to heaven without us. The final chapters of Jesus’ life had already been written and He had read them. The next few hours of his life would be unbearable. He would be betrayed by His closest friends, beaten, mocked and nailed to a cross. And Jesus giving up His life for ours would have been enough to show His great love for us. But then He goes on to show His great power by rising from an empty tomb so that we might join Him one day in heaven.
Through the sacrifice of His Son, God shows His great love for us. He laments the ones that won’t give their heart to Him and He pursues the ones that have wandered away and gotten lost. Jesus came after all of us when He went willing to the cross and He went after our neighbor when it seemed all hope was lost. Our prayers for that one lost sheep were answered and Jesus has given him another chance to experience the love and grace that comes with giving your life to Jesus. Mercy House was honored to lead the charge in praying for him and we aren’t done yet. He has asked Mercy House to help him through rehabilitation and beyond. We are thankful that we get the chance to help our neighbor rewrite his story. Thanks to so many generous gifts and resources, we are able to see him through his next steps and his new future. Through this experience he has seen his darkest days and through God’s grace he has come out on the other side so he can now celebrate the empty tomb. It is a Happy Easter, Jesus is Alive!
God Bless,
Pastor Ken Austin