In the newspaper this week I ran across the story of a little emiciated four year old boy who was found in New Jersey locked in his apartment. Neighbors had begun to notice a foul odor coming from the residence. Authorities were contacted, who in turn broke down the door to find the poor child alone with the corpse of his deceased mother. An autopsy was being conducted to determine the cause of death.
The little boy told the police that he had tried to open the refrigerator to get food but was not strong enough. In an apparent attempt to help his mother the boy had spread skin lotion over her lifeless body. Upon examination the police found little hand prints and fingerprints left behind by the lad.
I choked up reading the article, prayed a prayer for this unfortunate child and solicited others to join with me in praying for him. This boy's life would never be the same. His world had been completely turned upside down with tragedy, fear, chaos, turmoil and sorrow.
I couldn't help but think of the irony of this story in the middle of Holy Week. It contained such a poignant truth that goes to the heart of what the message of the Cross and Easter is all about.
Death is inevitable. We don't know when it will come, but it will come. Sometimes it comes too soon. Sometimes it comes in ways more tragic than others. In this case it came and separated a mother from her little boy who needed her and depended on her.
This child had to deal at such a young age with something that many of us didn't have to face so early in life. He handled a dead corpse. He touched a lifeless body. He felt the cold skin, he witnessed the bluing of the lips and fingers, he saw the vapid gaze of eyes that had glazed. He lived with death for four days.
I youth pastored a young man who found his mother deceased when he was three years old. He told me, thirty-five plus years later, that he remembered it like it was yesterday. I imagine it's an experience that one could never forget or be affected by.
There are some here perhaps who have handled death up close and personal. You were with a loved one when they died. Perhaps you tried in vain like this little boy to revive the deceased. Perhaps you helped pick up the body of someone who was dead, moving them, preparing them for the EMTs to come and make the pronouncement of death official.
Certainly there are people here who have been pallbearers, helping to carry the body of a friend or loved one from a church or funeral home to a hearse, from the hearse to the graveside prior to burial.
Death is coming. It's coming to those you love, to those you live near, to everyone on the planet. Death is coming to you. And like the little boy we attempt in vain to cheat death. We exercise, we eat right, we try to get enough sleep, we take medicine and we try to live carefully so that we might prolong life. And in some ways we can add years to our lives with healthy choices. But in the end all we're doing is putting the inevitable on hold.
Once death comes, that's it. There's no coming back. This little boy will never see his mother again. His last memories of her will be those four awful days in that tiny apartment.
It made me think of my children and how precious they are to me. I made a point to go eat lunch with my son at his elementary school that day. I hugged my daughter when she got home and told her I loved her. I called my son in the Air Force and talked to him for a good while making sure to tell him how much I missed him and how much he was loved by us. We never know when death will come. Many times it comes without warning. It made me cherish my life more and how precious life, as fleeting as it may be, really is.
Death is the curse of sin. The wages of sin is death. Because of mankind's sinfulness death is the daily reality in our world. In every country, on every continent people are dying. Life is short. The Bible says we are here like a vapor of water visible but for a moment and then we're gone.
Jesus only lived thirty three years. His time here was short. To those who loved Him and followed Him, those few years they knew Him came and went so quickly. Within a few hours they witnessed Jesus, full of life, arrested, imprisoned, tried, convicted, beaten and crucified. In a flash He was dead.
I thought about the hands that touched the lifeless body of Jesus. The people who pulled his body off of the Cross had moments before heard Him cry with a loud voice, "Father into Your hands I commit my spirit!" They watched His eyes roll back. They saw His head bow. They watched life leave His body.
They were pressed for time. They had to get His body into the grave before Sabbath began. Hurriedly they pulled the heavy Cross from its moorings to lay it and the body of Jesus down. They pulled the nails that held Him to the Cross from His hands, then His feet. They removed the crown of thorns. They began to wipe His body clean of the soil, the sweat, the tears and the blood that seemed to stain every inch of His tortured body.
They handled Him. They left fingerprints and handprints as they carried Him to the tomb. They took clean white burial linens and wrapped His body. There was no time for perfumes and spices like they normally would apply, the Sabbatical Laws preventing them from working, preparing Christ's body for burial. They would have to come back later and finish the job.
They exited the tomb containing the corpse of Jesus. The Roman guards were waiting and rolled a large stone over the mouth of the cave imprinting the seal of Caesar on it making it illegal to reopen the cave without permission. The disciples of Christ left the tomb, leaving the body of Jesus behind. They would never see Him again. Death is final. Once death comes, you never come back.
Three days had passed. Three days of chaos, fear, doubt, questions, sadness, sorrow, despondency, turmoil. Three days of wondering what would happen next---where to go from here---what to do?
Jesus was going to change everything. Just a week before crowds of people were hailing Him as Messiah. There was talk about the Kingdom being restored to Israel, of the Roman occupation coming to an end, of Jesus sitting on the throne of David and fulfilling all of the hopes and dreams of His people. But that was then, this was now. The death of Jesus turned that hope on it's head. With the death of Jesus came the death of His ministry, His influence, His power and His leadership. It was all over. Once death comes, there is no getting those things back.
Some of the women couldn't bear the thought of the body of Jesus rotting in that tomb without the proper strong scented oils and perfumes and spices that would mask the smell. Three days had passed, in another half day or so His body would begin to decompose to the point that the smell of rot would fill the air in and around His tomb.
They rose up early that morning, they gathered together the fundamentals of embalming and they arrived at the tomb as dawn was breaking. They had prepared their speech to the Roman guards. They were sure they could convince them to allow them into the sealed tomb to do their work. The scene they happened upon was completely unexpected.
The guards were gone. The stone had been rolled away from the opening to the tomb. They rushed inside to find the body of Jesus gone! The grave clothes were neatly folded on the slab where He had been laid. The napkin that covered His face was doubled over lying next to the linens. Where could His body be? Who took it? Why would they take it? This was a terrible turn of events in an already tragic situation!
Within hours they would discover that Jesus was actually alive! He had come back! He defied the laws of nature! He defied everything that they had ever known about death! When He died on that Friday, it wasn't final! They had not seen Him alive for the last time. He came back alive, even more so than He ever had been!
And He kept coming back. Again, and again, and again.
Acts 1 says He came back to them and showed Himself alive for forty days multiples of times. He talked to them about the Kingdom, He healed their collective guilt, He encouraged them, He comforted them, He strengthened them and He restored their hopes and renewed their dreams.
They watched Him ascend into heaven but He had previously told them in
John 14 "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you." Again He said in
Matthew 28 "I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth." And so in
Acts 2 Jesus came back, His Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh and thousands were added to the church. And as we read throughout the book of Acts we see Jesus coming back, again and again. And every time He comes back He restores, He encourages, He heals, He strengthens, He comforts, He renews hope and restores our dreams. Actually He never really leaves. He abides in us and with us. He is an ever present God.
Throughout my life I have discovered that Jesus keeps coming back. When I pray, He's there. When I worship, He's there. When I'm sick, or sad, when I'm alone or with others, Jesus is always there. David said, "Where shall I flee from His Presence?" You can't keep Him away. He is not dead---He is alive and active and searching and reaching out to us. He has left His fingerprints and handprints all over my life, not with futile attempts to restore me, but with life-changing power and experiences and touches.
The message of Easter is that Jesus is alive. He's not dead, gone forever. He's alive forevermore. And the fact that He's alive, conquering death and the grave, means many things. It means that a dead marriage can be resurrected even when it seems like it could never be recovered. It means that a dead relationship with your parents or child can be renewed even when it seems it's too far gone and could never be restored. It means that the death of any hope, dream, ministry, career, aspiration or future can be injected with new life because Jesus broke the oldest curse in history.
It means that death isn't final. It means that our loved ones who died in Christ will be seen again. And it means that if we die in Christ, we too shall live again. It means that a little boy who lost his mother this week, if someone should tell Him this story about the resurrected Christ and he believes in it and follows the Lord, can live a life of destiny and purpose in spite of his unfortunate circumstances.
It means that a life dead in sin: dead in addictions, bitterness, lust, adultery, betrayal, abuse, dishonesty and lawlessness can be resurrected to become something far greater than one could ever hope for! Easter changes everything! A comeback for all of us is possible! Why don't you take advantage of the opportunity now to come out of your dead circumstances and find a new life in Jesus?
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