Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

After weeks of traveling through the dark days of Lent, Easter comes fresh and alive. Thank God for good news today!

Several years ago, my friends Anneliese & Bob had their son Daniel baptized on Easter Sunday at our church. Afterward, I ran downstairs to pick up my own children (who were quite small themselves) and hurried them back to the sanctuary to give our good wishes to our friends. Hurrying upstairs, I didn't have much time to listen to their excitement of what they had been doing during the worship hour. They were bristling with enthusiasm, and my son Taylor in particular was about to burst with his story.

Taylor excitedly ran into the sanctuary. He ran to the center of the aisle amongst all the morning chaos, and shouted as loud as he could:

"He is not here! He is in prison!"

In the busy shuffling, hardly anyone heard. But I found myself in hysterics at the minor mix up with letters, sounds, and meanings. Instead of hearing, "He is not here, he is RISEN," he had heard "prison" instead. And for whatever story was afloat in his head, that bit of info was really big news.

I couldn't help but think of Paul and Silas in prison. It sounds like a terrible fix to me, and yet, within it, they still seem to find good news:

20When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews 21and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ 22The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 24Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 27When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. 28But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ 29The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ 31They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ 32They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. 34He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Acts 16:20-34

It also makes me think of my own prisons, where I keep my heart caged from time to time. Unlike Paul and Silas, I am not usually able to see the up side to hard times. I don't feel at home amongst iron bars and earthquakes.

Whatever your Lenten prisons have been, Easter has come, breaking open our hardened vaults. Resurrection news invites us out of our jails. I hope you find yourself squinting today in the bright light of good, good news.

It is the greatest promise of our faith, that despite dark days, there can really be happy endings after all. Amen.

Why not celebrate what you had rather than spend your time mourning its passing? There could be joy in things that ended.
- Ann Brashares, Forever in Blue

In Wisdom,
Brandi Calhoun Diamond