The Greatest Story Ever Told

Lent is quickly coming to a close and the tomb will soon be opening.  Our faith community has spent these past weeks looking at a few of the spiritual disciplines that can help us to unlock holiness in our lives and assist us in living lives that are set apart for the sake of Christ.  We’ve spent time learning about the importance of solitude, fasting, prayer, meditation, study, and submission in our daily lives.  But all of this is not about laws we must follow.  It’s about spiritual tools we have been given that will enhance our ability to get closer to the God who died in order to get closer to us. 

I remember growing up outside the church and believing that God was the mean one that drowns everyone who doesn’t do what he wants, and Jesus was the nice one who loved the little children.  In our dining room hung a velvet painting of Jesus kneeled on a rock, praying with all his might.  I always figured he was praying to God that he might be nicer to the rest of us.  Little did I know he was praying for himself in a great time of need, though in the end, God’s will, not his own. 

Each Easter I would get on my best dress, my white tights, gloves, bonnet, and little girl’s purse, my patent leather shoes, and head out the door with my family for Easter worship.  Some years I would stay the spring break week with my great grandparents in Wayne and they would take me to Easter worship.  But every year, I went.  It was the only Sunday of the year I spent in worship, but that Sunday, we did not miss.  Even my grandfather got out of his farmer attire of work pants and white tee shirt and put on his best suit, crisp white shirt, matching tie, and shined dress shoes.  Even grandpa went to the church to worship that week.  I knew it was special, but honestly, I wasn’t sure why.

The story was always the same.  Jesus was killed for being so nice.  He was hung on a cross to die a horrible death.  His mom cried at his feet.  His friends took him off the cross and prepared his body for burial.  A large rock was placed in front of the tomb which his body was placed in… and three days later, the tomb was empty.  What was amazing was how excited we would all get each year at that point in the story, even though we had heard it before.  Mary Magdalene would be the first to see Jesus alive and she would run off to tell others.  Peter and John would run to the tomb next and find nothing but cloth.  Later Jesus appeared to all of them. 

This year I will be preaching at that worship service.  The same story will be told, actually by little children this year.  Children like me, back in those days of white tights and bonnets.  Only they won’t be sitting in the seats with their parents and grandparents listening to the story.  They will be telling the story, acting it out.  They will wrap the body for burial and place it in the tomb.  They will come to the tomb and cry on their knees when they find it empty.  They will run for the others and then return only to find cloth.  And they will see their Savior and Lord, Jesus their Christ, with their very eyes… and we will all celebrate!... with streamers and balloons and songs of joy! 

The Easter story was the first story I knew about Jesus, and through it, I eventually came to celebrate the God who sent him.  Not the mean drowning God, but the loving, forgiving, gracious God who was willing to get out of his Sunday best and put on humanity… as dirty, and wrinkled, and filthy as it can be.  Don’t miss the Greatest Story Ever Told this Easter.  And don’t let your kids or their kids miss it either.  It’s too important. 

You can meet us at Concord UMC Thursday night for a re-enactment of the Lord’s Supper at 7 pm, or join us Friday at 12:30 pm at Horton Congregational for a community wide Good Friday service where we’ll hear 7 pastors expound on 7 phrases Jesus used on that dreadful day.  Sunday morning you can meet us on Swain’s Hill for a sunrise worship at 7 am, or back to the church at 10 am for the children’s dramatic telling of the Easter story.  We’ll even share breakfast in between.  But come.  All eternity depends on it.