Good Morning Church! Happy Easter!
This past week at our Tuesday staff meeting, Frank Rosch our Hispanic Minister at The Madison Church of Christ, was in charge of our devotional.
As he began he asked us, “What day is it?”
He received the obvious responses;
- “It’s Tuesday.”
- “April 11th.”
- “It’s the day before Wednesday.”
It wasn’t until he drapped a beautiful prayer shaw around his shoulders that we realized this past Tuesday was actually, Passover.
Even-though I had realized Passover was coming up as I wrote my Facebook sermon last week it had slipped my mind as well.
If you missed last week’s post go back and read it, Good Morning Church! April 8,2017
(and pick up a stuffed lamb at the after Easter sales.) I got one for each of my kids to remind us that we are no longer required to submit to the sacrificial laws handed down from Moses because JESUS was and continues to be our PERFECT LAMB SACRIFICE.
But in our devotional Frank shared a lesson on the history and current observations of Passover as he also focused on CHRIST THE LAMB.
1 Peter 1:18–21 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
There is no doubt that as I have grown older Easter has taken on new meaning.
As a child Easter revolved around chocolate bunnies (solid chocolate bunnies not those hollow chocolate teasers you find now! And mine were always earless by the time we left for church)
After church we went to my grandparents to hunt Easter Eggs.
Real Easter Eggs — hard boiled eggs that we would peel and eat after they had been hidden and played with until they were cracked and smashed so that the shell fell apart in tiny pieces in our hands.
But this year for me it’s been all about THE LAMB.
My mind has silently sang the beautiful prophetic lines of Revelation 5 as they echo through The Revelation song over and over.
And my prayers have centered on those who find themselves again modifying their plans of celebration to include moments of reflection and days of mourning to honor innocent lives martyred.
The death toll from last week’s Palm Sunday bombings is at 44 with 25 killed in the Coptic Church bombing this past December just before Christmas.
But as I speak with my Coptic friends their reactions are all the same and I hope they will inspire you this Easter Morning as they have me.
Reverent and resolved but consumed with PEACE.
There is a sadness for those most closely connected to the recent bombings.
But the PEACE they share is like nothing I have ever witnessed before.
A peace that comes only from lives fully convicted that THE LAST LAMB SACRIFICE through HIS BLOOD AND RESURRECTION WAS WORTHY INDEED!
HAPPY EASTER!
God Bless
LaVern Vivio
April 16, 2017
