How Do I Know? I Am Scared by Father Ed Morgan
April 10, 2009
I have in my office a painting of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C., “The Wall” as many have called it. When I visited D.C. several years ago, it took three days for me to build up my courage level enough to visit The Wall. As I stood before that black chunk of rock with thousands of names engraved on it, the immensity of it overwhelmed me and my knees buckled. Plain rock, polished and engraved—simplicity in itself. What made it personal were the names, names of men I served with. Names of friends who grew up together, played handball, sold newspapers at the church, plotted how to find and buy cherry bombs, shared lunches, planned parties and futures.
I visualized an image of standing at the graveside while taps played, an image of visiting parents to tell them their son is dead and unrecognizable due to the booby trap. I not only cried, I sobbed. I sat on the ground at the memorial, feeling stunned, shocked, and helpless, for them and for myself.
There is more to the story, but my purpose here is to share the immensity of the shock I feel when I stand before the cross on Good Friday, understanding in many ways there is nothing good about Good Friday. All is lost. Hope has vanished. Dreams and plans are gone! Gone by the law of the Romans and the leadership of the Jews.
Whatever hope we had felt is gone! Jesus died! Jesus did not feign it, faint, swoon, or fake out the Romans. He died! End of story!
As I stood at The Wall feeling the powerful emotions, I wailed at the loss. The Disciples were in the same grip of agony. Yes, Jesus had told them He would return, and intellectually they understood that something would happen somewhere down the road, too far away to be of any significance to them at the time of their grief.
They were so caught up in their mourning that they did not and could not understand the impact of the empty tomb on that early morning. It took time for them to begin to understand; it wasn’t until Jesus started to appear to them that things began to fall into place. Thomas simply voiced what others—some, not all—were afraid to say. When Jesus appeared, Thomas fell to his knees understanding, at last, that Jesus lives! I can’t help but think that tears of grief and joy were mixed in Thomas, for never again would he waver in his belief!
Death affects all of us, as it is something we all face individually. We experience many forms of death in our daily lives: cultural deaths, deaths of traditions, deaths to former ways of living, deaths to old thoughts, etc.
Because of the death of Jesus on the cross and His Resurrection three days later, never to die again, we can begin to hope. We can find the courage to die to the old sinful nature in order to live as the new creation that is birthed in Christ.
“That’s great, Father Ed,” you say. “But it all sounds like so much hyperbole, oratory, empty rhetoric. We’ve heard this all before.”
True, you have heard this before, but did you pay attention? Are you ready to listen now? Let me share with you a simple method of listening. Stop talking! You are not the only person to suffer. You don’t have a market on desperation. But if you want the answer that is not trite: Stop talking and listen. He will speak to your heart, with the Still Small Voice, and through His Holy Scriptures, if we can just take the time to be quiet before Him.
You are important, loved, and valued! You matter to God. God made you, regardless of what you think, and He loves you! If that is hard for you to accept, it’s because you are still TALKING! Your only hope in this world is God! A living and loving God. He who did what you cannot do. He opened His arms for you to come back to Him.
God of our fathers is not a God of the past. He is a God of the present. When He speaks, He speaks of the now, not the was or the will be. He answers Moses and the Prophets by saying “I am” the God of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Noah, Jacob, and all the others. He speaks in the now and acts in the now. God is not past. Jesus proved this when He rose from the dead. Only a living God can do that! Jesus never spoke of God as in the past or as a God of the sometime to come, maybe. Jesus talked about the God of now.
Do you realize that we have more documentation proving the existence of Jesus and His works than we do of Plato, Socrates, and some of the other so-called greats of history? We have over 500 witnesses to the Resurrected Christ documented in history. We have more proof of the validity of the Bible than we do of many early secular historical documents. The more science tries to prove the Bible wrong or inconsistent, the more science reveals itself to be inflated of self.
This Easter, Resurrection Day, celebrate a new birth in Christ. Take a small step of faith—when you consider all of the documentation, it’s not much of a step. We accept a lot of garbage today based on nothing but feeling, no witnesses or documentation. We don’t have to depend on mere feeling to accept Christ and His Gospel, His message.
What is keeping you from bending your knee and confessing with your tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord? He lives and dies no more, ever! What are you afraid of? Here is One who can create in you a new creation, One who can help you overcome the devils of the world, those things that keep you from having a life filled with joy and freedom. The Gospel message of Christ does not hinder, bind, or shackle you. It frees you to become what God has chosen for you from the time you were in the womb. Come and find out how God overcomes, lifts up, and breathes new life into the valley of dry bones that you and I drag around daily. Accept the risen Lord and agree to serve Him and not that which condemns, chains, tortures, binds, cripples, and keeps us from the promises of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
Come, taste and see the sweetness of the Lord. Come and have life and have it abundantly.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast.
Join us Easter Sunday when we declare this together filled with the Spirit: He is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen!
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