“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:15 (NKJV)
By Bro. John L. Cash, “Country Preacher Dad”
I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you today. I deeply love the celebration of Easter—but I have always dreaded preparing the Easter sermon. It’s a task that I’m not equal to, and it makes me feel pressured and overwhelmed. You see, I just don’t have words good enough to describe what God did for us on the first Easter Sunday.
Trying to preach about the beauty of Easter is like being given a box of eight Crayolas and one sheet of paper and being required to draw a picture that perfectly depicts Life and Beauty and Light. It’s like having to write a tune that brings peace to every person in the world who hears it. It’s like having to speak a word that dries every tear that has ever been cried. It’s like trying to write a story in 25 words or less that fixes all the things that have ever been broken.
The Easter sermon is an impossible task, indeed, because in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God the Father accomplished all of these things — and more.
I think the Apostle Paul felt the same inadequacy about trying to explain the glory of the LORD. In today’s Scripture lesson he says, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.” So I’ve given up on preaching the perfect Easter sermon. Just as it’s impossible to stare intently at the sun for any length of time, it’s impossible to gaze directly at the glory of the Son of God.
Because of that, I have to be content with preaching “a corner” of the truth or maybe “a crumb” that’s left behind when the Bread of Life is shared. Because of Easter, Jesus is living, and Death is now dead. We will be raised on the last day with new bodies, will receive back our loved ones, and will dwell eternally with God.
It’s too much to understand. Maybe you just have to KNOW it and FEEL it — and it’s my prayer today that you experience God’s indescribable gift.
From our house to your house, the blessings of Easter.
Dr. John L. Cash is the “Country Preacher Dad.” He was raised in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and has spent the last 26 years being a country preacher in the piney woods five miles south of the little town of Hickory, Mississippi. (On week days he has a desk-job at a public school and teaches Latin on closed-circuit-television.) He and his lovely wife, Susan, and his sons, Spencer (age 20) and Seth (age 17) live in the parsonage next door to the Antioch Christian Church (where this morning the baby girls will be wearing bonnets and the baby boys will be dressed like Pinocchio.) He would love to hear from you in an email sent to jcash@scott.k12.ms.us.
