Keep telling the story

Happy Easter! Luke 24:6 tells us, “He is not here, but has risen.” Mission accomplished. Jesus died on that tree for the forgiveness of our sins (1st Peter 2:24) and He came out of that grave to deliver us from death (Romans 6:23). Death has no sting for us (1st Corinthians 15:55-57), to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2nd Corinthians 5:8). Abundant life (John 10:10) and eternal life (John 3:16) are wonderful free gifts of our salvation.

I like the story about the children’s Sunday school teacher who asked the students to bring a plastic egg with something in it that represented the meaning of the resurrection. One little girl had a flower in her egg and explained how that flower symbolized the new life that springs forth out of Easter. Another egg had a small nail, and the point was made about the nails in the hands of Christ that held Him on the cross. Another child brought a small pebble in his egg, and they talked about the stone that was rolled away from the grave of Jesus.

Finally, they got to the last child, the teacher opened the egg and it was empty. This egg was the best egg of all because it reminded everyone about the emptiness of the tomb. As Molly Skaggs sings, “There ain’t no grave, could hold His body down, and when I hear that trumpet sound, I’m gonna rise up outta the ground, There ain’t no grave, gonna hold my body down.” Jesus is alive today and that changes everything.

Henry Morris shared with us that, “The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the crowning proof of Christianity. If the resurrection did not take place, then Christianity is a false religion. If it did take place, then Christ is God and the Christian faith is absolute truth.” Easter matters because without Easter we don’t have Christianity.

In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick we are introduced to a character named Queequeg. If you remember the story Queequeg gets sick and before he recovers he had asked the ship’s carpenter to make him a coffin in the shape of a canoe, he was certain the sickness was going to kill him.

So the carpenter took Queequeg’s measurements and made the canoe shaped coffin. Of course, the story of the pursuit of the whale takes over and everyone forgets about the canoe shaped coffin.

The whale wins the battle with Captain Ahab and the ship is destroyed. Ishmael, the one telling us this fantastic story finds himself in the water being sucked into the vortex of the sinking ship, Ishmael is fearing for his life when all of a sudden out of the water shoots up this canoe shaped coffin. He climbs into the coffin and eventually is rescued by a passing ship. Easter is a lot like that coffin; it rescued us from both sin and death. Can you say “Hallelujah!”?

Is that the end of the story? Not really. In John Masefield’s drama, The Trial of Jesus, the centurion reports to Pilate after Jesus is killed. Pilate’s wife asks the centurion, “Do you think He is dead?” The centurion says, “No ma’am. I do not.”

“Then where is He?” asks Pilate’s wife. The centurion replies, “Let loose in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop His truth.” Those of us who know Jesus have a job to do, it’s to keep telling the story of this living Savior so that others might be rescued and join us in this great Christian life. Let’s go!

He told me to tell you that.