9 And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. ~ Matthew 28:9 (NKJV)
By Bro. John L. Cash
When Jesus Christ rose from the dead on that first Easter Sunday, the first word He uttered (to the first people He met) was the word “Rejoice!” And that word is the one word that makes all the difference for us.
As humans we all have something in common. At some point, for all of us, something happens that makes “our whole world” fall apart. Sometimes, especially when we’re children, our “tragedies” are small (like not getting the red crayon), but they seem big to us at the time.
Later on, we experience tragedies that are real and devastating. Our despair is indescribable and overwhelming. But, if we’re lucky, at those times somebody takes us in their arms and says to us, “Everything is going to be all right. Things are going to be all right again.”
Now here’s the amazing thing. Even in the midst of the greatest tragedy, we know in our heart-of-hearts that those words are true. We’re not being patronized. We’re not being lied to. We’re being told the truth. “Everything is going to be all right. Things are going to get all right again.”
We believe it and we know it because that’s the truth of Easter. Because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, everything (and I do mean everything) is going to be all right. This is most certainly true.
It’s no wonder that the first word on Easter was “Rejoice!”
From our house to your house, have a wonderful Easter Sunday.
And, rejoice…Jesus Christ is risen, indeed!
Dr. John L. Cash is the “Country Preacher Dad.” He was raised in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and has spent the last 29 years being a country preacher in the piney woods five miles south of the little town of Hickory, Mississippi. (On week days has a desk-job at a public school, where he used to teach Latin on closed-circuit-television.) He and his lovely wife, Susan, live in the parsonage next door to the Antioch Christian Church (where the people are surely rejoicing today.) Their kids include Spencer (age 23), his wife Madeline (age 23), and Seth (age 20).
