Ruined

  For many years, we had celebrated Passover with all the pomp and ceremony we could muster: fine china, candles, linens, and lots o’ matzo! Our family filled our table as we bumbled through the Seder meal, reading the traditional blessings and prayers, lighting the candles, and always ending the meal with the hopeful refrain, “Next year, Jerusalem!”

   But the night that Timothy’s dad, Herb, passed away (April 5, 2022), our home was filled with police officers, sheriff deputies, ambulance attendants, pastors, and others, all wandering in and out, and wanting statements. In the emptiness of the crowd, the darkness told me, “Passover is ruined. Easter is ruined. You’ll be planning another funeral.” The thoughts came from the enemy, but I believed them. Everything in the future looked dismal and bleak. Ruined. How could this happen? How will we ever get through this?

   We didn’t celebrate Passover that year, but we lived it. The sad part that the disciples experienced - death and grief, confusion and hopelessness – we lived that part. No eggs, no bunnies, no new Easter dresses. Don't think, just breathe.

   Easter morning, Jubilee and I decided to go to a church we had never set foot in, and where neither Herb nor Timothy had ever gone, so we wouldn’t be carrying any memories with us.

   The huge choir enthusiastically sang about the death-defying power of the blood of Christ. New songs I hadn’t heard before loudly proclaimed the message of Hope and Life, Victory and Resurrection! Song after song shouted loud and clear, “Christ has conquered sin, Hell and the grave!” 

   While listening to the songs, Hope rose up and assured me, “Nothing can ruin Easter! Easter ruined death! Easter ruined the funeral! Jesus is Victor! Death is defeated! Easter wins!”

   Satan thought he had won when Jesus was crucified and buried, but he was oh, so sadly mistaken! His short-lived celebration ended when Jesus walked out of the tomb! There is no place for despair or self-pity when death has lost! Life wins! That is the message of Easter - the one holiday that nothing can ruin!

“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?”

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Corinthians 15:54, 55, 57)

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)