AN EASTER MEDITATION

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, {1 Pet 1:3 )

The Apostle Peter began his first letter to the Christians of Asia Minor with a benediction much as we begin each Sunday sermon.  Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied, 1 Peter 1:2, followed by the words, “Thank you, heavenly Father, for Easter.”  Easter meant everything to this apostle.  It meant a new hope for someone who was crushed by his sin.  The three days before Easter were perhaps the saddest days of Peter’s life.  I imagine he didn’t sleep much.  He couldn’t help but think of how he had boasted that he would stay true and fight for Jesus even unto death.  When the moment came, however, his proud boast changed into a miserable denial.  The last we know of Peter before the resurrection, is that he walked out into the night as a man with a broken heart, tearfully looking to His Lord for forgiveness, and painfully afraid that he would never see Him again.

Can you imagine the joy he felt when the women who returned from the grave said, “This is what the angel told us,’ Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you.’”  Mark 16:7 It was unbelievable news.  Jesus had mentioned him by name.  It was one thing to know that his Savior was alive, but quite another to learn that He still cared about a disciple who didn’t care for Him, that Jesus could reach out in love to someone who within the past week had denied that he ever knew Him.  There was never love like this, and the effect on Peter was simply wonderful.  Just to know that Jesus was alive again made all the difference.  At this point he couldn’t begin to know all the splendid things that the risen Lord promised to do for His children, but this much he knew, that Jesus cared enough to call him by name.  The words from Isaiah surely rang in his ears, “Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”  Isaiah 43:1   Easter meant new life for the Apostle. Now he could sleep.  Now he could get up in the morning with a clean conscience, because he knew that the risen Christ cared for him.  How could Jesus love someone like him?  Only Jesus had that kind of love, and the apostle understood that very well, for he writes, “He has made me alive ‘according to His abundant mercy.’”  Abundant mercy, mercy upon mercy, mercy without end, mercy that is new every morning, as the Scriptures say, “[It is of] the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:23.

 Alas! and did my Savior bleed, And did my [Savior] die?
 Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?                                 

 Was it for crimes that I had done He groaned upon the tree?
 Amazing pity, grace unknown, And love beyond degree!  TLH 154, 1,2

            This love is what Easter is all about.  Jesus rose from the dead, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, never to die again.  He is alive forever to keep our lives from coming apart with worry and fear and uncertainty about the future.  Just as He called Peter by name, so He calls us by name.  When we are worried about our sins, the risen Lord says, “Don’t worry.  I’ve left them all in the grave.”  When we have trouble coping with our problems, Jesus says, “Tell me about them.  One reason I rose from the dead was to assure you that I’ll be with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  Every day is a new beginning with our Lord.  I think this is part of the symbolism of Easter.  No one actually knows the date of Jesus resurrection any more than we know the day of His birth.  Both are arbitrary dates, and yet, it seems, Christians chose to celebrate Easter especially at this time of year because in spring, growth begins and new life springs forth.  People wear new clothes and new bonnets to signify a kind of new beginning, and children of God praise their Redeemer for the new birth that Easter brings into their lives.

            Today we say with our children, “I know that my Redeemer lives and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”  Our Redeemer is alive at God’s right hand in heaven to guide and direct the lives of His children of every age until on the latter day He stands with open arms to receive us to spend eternity with Him.  O may we say with the Apostle Peter, “Thank you, heavenly Father, for Easter.”