lay person: Janice Edson
The Man I’m Looking For.
The first words that caught my attention in our Gospel reading this morning were the words of the angel to the women, “Why are you seeking the Living among the dead?” That’s what they were doing, bringing their spices to the tomb of a dead man.
I have played and sung for weddings at the Little Brown Church for over 50 years. On a few occasions, not often, I’ve gotten a phone call from a frazzled church secretary asking if I’m on my way. I had forgotten I had a wedding. So I say to myself all the time “I have to Remember I have a wedding” at such and such a time on such and such a day. It is one of my biggest fears that I’ll forget a wedding!
The women who came to the tomb had “forgotten" what Jesus had told them. They were instructed by the angel “Remember” what He said. “The Son of God MUST be delivered into the hands of sinful men, crucified and the third day rise again. Two things caught my attention in those words from the angel. One was the word “must”. I looked up the meaning of that word in this verse. The word used in Scripture means “ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OR AN OBLIGATION WHICH MUST BE MET”. JESUS HAD TO OBEY GOD; There was NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE. GOD KEEPS HIS WORD. IF CERTAIN THINGS WERE PROMISED, GOD HAD TO DELIVER THEM .
I also discovered there was significance in the emphasis of the “third day”. “In Jewish culture, three days past the time of death indicated the person was truly dead.”
But the women Remembered
They Returned from the tomb
They Reported all these things.
The Man they were looking for was the Risen Son of God!
It was the Psalmist who wrote our Psalms this morning and Jonathan Edwards who wrote a devotion based on the verses from Zechariah that we read this morning that made me start thinking about “The Man I’m looking for” on this Easter Sunday morning, March 31, Two Thousand and Twenty Four!!
The world needs a Savior! All they have is Peter Cottontail. I observed parents at Walmart on Friday and also Saturday at Dollar General looking for things for their children. In 1949 two American Songwriters, Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson, wrote “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” hippity, hopping down a bunny trail, to bring boys and girls baskets full of Easter Joy! Peter Cottontail had “jelly beans for Tommy, colored eggs for Sister Sue, an Orchid for your Mommy and an Easter Bonnet too! Things to make Easter “bright and gay”. Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, made the song very popular when he recorded it.
I had read Psalm 103 and, as I read it, I made a list of all of the LORD’s Benefits. Thinking about a basket full of Easter Joy I discovered along with the Psalmist the Easter Joys that are ours because of The Man I’m Looking For:
All our sins--Forgiven
All our diseases healed. —I’ve often thought of the word disease as “dis”—“ease”. I
cannot count the number of nights, I have crawled out of my
bed with heartaches and problems that I have taken to The
LORD and sitting on my kitchen floor he’s healed
My dis-ease, inspite of those things that
were stealing my peace of mind, and my sleep in the dark of
the midnight.
The Man I’m looking for:
Renews our strength
He does not Repay us according to our iniquities
He Removes our transgressions an infinite distance from us
He Remembers our form. We are “dust”.
He Crowns us with Love and Compassion--a love described by an infinite distance—as
high as the heavens are above the earth. No Easter bonnet can compare with that Crown!
We hear the word the angel spoke to the women at the tomb coming back to us: “Remember”!
I have a very clear memory of my dad, as a very young man, sitting in the lime green upholstered chair in the corner of the living room in his choir clothes at the end of the day. In my picture he has a cigarette in his hand and he’s watching the TV. He loved to watch boxing. I can hear the bell ring at the start of every round. I can hear the announcer announcing the boxing match. “Ladies and Gentlemen…”
Years ago I heard a song on KNWS and that song started out like a boxing match:
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?
I want to introduce to you
In this corner of the good and the right
Stands the Champion robed in white
His height exceeds the heavens, His weight outweighs the worlds
His reach reaches everywhere, His age is evermore
Chorus:
He is higher than the highest
Greater than the great
No one will ever take His crown away
He's more mighty than the mightiest
He reigns from above
He's the all-time undisputed, undefeated Champion of Love
He left His hometown to enter this arena. (I shared this verse as during our benediction).
To raise His hands in victory for me
An angry crowd crucified this King who wore their crown
And they gladly watched The Champion going down
But I will never count Him out for I'm a witness of
The day He rose to retain the title; Champion of Love. (Words by Carolyn and Phil Cross)
This is The Man I’m Looking for but I’m not looking for Him just for myself! On this Easter Sunday, 2024, I’m Looking for this Man because He is the Risen Christ! He said He MUST die and Rise Again. The man I’m looking for is also looking for the lost! And He has True Easter JOY to Bring to every girl and boy, every man and woman who will receive Him as their Savior!
I was standing at the Kitchen sink in my parents home in the 1960’s washing dishes and the radio was on, probably to WMT? A song came on the radio that was spoken more than it was sung. Patti Page performed this song. The lyrics were written from the point of view of a person who is disillusioned with events in life that are supposedly unique experiences. The singer tells of
witnessing her family's house on fire when she was a little girl
Of seeing the circus,
and falling in love for the first time.
After each recital, she expresses her disappointment in the experience. Is that all there is? Then ”let’s keep dancing, let’s break out the booze and have a ball—if that's all there is”.
That song has stuck we me. I feel that the world doesn’t know that “this is not all there is!!
That’s where Johnathan Edwards came into the picture last week. I read a devotional He wrote based on the verses from Zechariah. In my Bible I have the word’s “Longing for God in an age of discouragement” written under the title of “The Book of Zechariah”. Jonathan Edwards was an American Revivalist Preacher. The Words that caught my attention in the scripture were what the inhabitants of the cities were saying to each other: “Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts.” Johnathan Edwards' devotional focused on united and extraordinary prayer,
to seek God
that He would come and manifest Himself
That He would appear for the help of His church
And appear in mercy to mankind
That He would pour out His Spirit and revive His work and advance
His Spiritual Kingdom in the world as he promised.
Remember that word MUST!
These are our prayer requests for our world and loved ones that they might seek and find the Living One among the dead!
I asked MaryAnn to put those prayer requests in our bulletin. I’m asking God what is extraordinary prayer? I have to believe that if we unite our hearts together and humbly seek God He will hear our prayers and move again among us.
Our verses from I Corinthians 15 and Hebrews says: “Remember”! The grave has been conquered; death has been swallowed up in Victory! Christ has risen. The Man we are looking for is the only way to the Father. There is no other way but through the Son of God who at the cross has broken the power of Satan, who held the power of death. My MacArthur Study Bible Says “Because we were flesh and blood, Jesus himself, also partook of the same. The Son of God was not by nature flesh and blood but took upon Himself that nature, in the incarnation—to come to earth to die—conquering death in His resurrection. By conquering death He rendered Satan powerless against all who are saved.”
As we watched the Fox News Station this Lenten Season we’ve seen Franklin Graham standing in front of what is considered the tomb Jesus rose from reminding us all that if we have not asked Jesus to forgive us of our sins and be our Savior, we are invited by the Man I’m looking for to do that now. Just pray and confess to Jesus you are a sinner and ask him to come into your heart and be your Savior!
He is a Risen Savior who is in the world today. That is the man I’m looking for this Easter, the man I’m praying that the world would seek. We MUST seek the Living among the dead! Amen.
