Looking Unto the Cross..... A devotional for day 28 of LENT Saturday, April 8

"Let's Just Move Easter." It was a district youth council meeting. We had just done the calendar for the next two years. Unknowingly, we had done the unthinkable! We had scheduled a major youth event for Easter weekend. When we realized our error, one of the senior high teens spoke up: "Let's just move Easter." We had a good laugh that day. How ridiculous to think we could move the holiday. How ludicrous for us to change the calendar to suit our own scheduling. How ridiculous! How impossible! Then again, the people around Jerusalem must have thought some of those same things on that first Easter morning. Jesus? Alive again? How impossible! He was crucified. We watched it happen. They buried him three days ago. How ludicrous to change the rules of life and death. Then again, maybe it isn't all that ridiculous. (No, we couldn't and didn't move the holiday. We moved our youth event!) Jesus certainly changed the rules of life and death. The rules said, "He's dead." The cross meant death-slow, painful, agonizing death. Crucifixion meant death in a cruel, de-humanizing way. The cross was for criminals. The cross was punishment. Quite simply, He changed the rules… In His own words, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." I've never forgotten that council meeting nor the laughs we had. We couldn't change the calendar; we couldn't move Easter. But the One who changed the rules of all eternity that first Easter began to change me. I began to ponder some more just what Jesus accomplished on the cross, and just what He changed through His death and resurrection. I began to think of that teen's statement in its inverse. What if we "just let Easter move us"? What if we really, honestly, visited the somber reality of the cross? What if we, like Paul, really decide that we want to know Christ, and the fellowship of sharing in His suffering, becoming like Him in His death? (Phil. 3:10) What if? What if we revisited that empty grave and let the reality of the resurrection of Jesus change our lives? No one else ever changed the rules like that! What if, in response, we began to live for Jesus in the reality of Easter's victory? It would change us. It would have to. Jesus changed all the rules of life and death. He proclaimed, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it." If we really began to live in the power of Jesus' resurrection, through the Holy Spirit at work in us, not just at Easter or Pentecost, but from January 1 to December 31, from 12 a.m. to 11:59 p.m., (the teen who spoke at the council meeting would say, "24-7-365"!), our lives would never be the same. They couldn't be, they shouldn't be... After all, the rule-changing reality of Jesus' resurrection is enough to change the world, one life at a time. Kim Hersey Fruitland, Idaho, USA Father God of all that is and ever will be, I cannot even begin to imagine why You have done what You have accomplished. Help me to live the resurrected life of Your grace and mercy and may I chime in with St. Paul and always say, "... but the life I live, I live by faith in Your Son..." Amen Suggested Daily Scripture Reading [Psalms 102,108] [Exod. 2:23-3:15] [I Cor. 13:1-13] [Mark 9:14-29] Visit: 1999 Advent/Christmas Series Epiphany Series You may send e-mail comments or suggestions toYvonne Edwards. Edited: Mar. 22, 10:05 a.m. Page designed by: Cecil Wallace Prayer by: Joe Hittle The background set is provided by In His Image Cross button courtesy of The Christian Graphics Gallery Copyright © 2000 NazNet All rights reserved. International copyright secured.