Easter: The Glad Surprise

by Rev Robert A Wendel

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” “His mercies never come to an end.  The Lord is good to those who wait for him.  I will hope in him.”  (Psalm 90:14, Lamentations 3:22-25NRSV)

There is something exciting about a ‘glad surprise”.  It carries with it an element of elation, of life, of something over and beyond the surprise itself.  Look backward and count for yourself the many surprising moments that have gladdened your own life.  All of them have to do with hope.  Take the simple change of the seasons.  One day there is no sign of life.  Suddenly, comes Spring!

A much needed surprise can also arrive at the end of a long tunnel of tragedy or tribulation.  We’re stumbling in the dark.  We fall at a stairway, like Jacob’s Ladder.  Those steps lead us from darkness into light.  The most meaningful, life impacting, glad surprises come our way directly by God’s Almighty Hand.  So often joy is unpredictable.  God is never late.  So, our blessing comes just in time.

For us Christians, East morning offers us real, touchable evidence of our future resurrection, the ultimate glad surprise.  In Luke, an angel asked , “ Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here.  Jesus has risen.”  Luke 24:5, NRSV Adapted).

It is the announcement that life cannot be conquered by death.  Darkness is not our eternal future.  Here on earth there is strength added when labors increase, our multiplied peach matches multiplied trials.  Therefore, the lives of true believers are bottomed out by the glad surprise of life everlasting in a home beyond the stars!

In the meantime, people of all ages in so many places are hungry for hope wanting to be in a pace where there will be no more pain, stress loneliness or death.  Wait!!!