Easter Sunday
Before we get going here, let’s talk baseball.
And the team with the worst record in baseball right now, the Chicago White Sox. They have only four wins. What if by some miracle they were to win the World Series this year! That’d be one of the more remarkable reversal stories of all time.
If the White Sox won the World Series that’d be one thing. But there is an even greater reversal story and we’re celebrating it today. Yup, it’s Easter and Easter, is the greatest reversal story of all time.
But it didn’t start that way. By all appearances Jesus’ life had ended in utter failure. His followers had all abandoned him. The great crowds that had once flock to hear him now had turned into a crowd that mocks, and jeers him as he stumbles his way up the hill where he knows it will end. Nailed to a cross he dies, and it looks like it’s all over. But, then the great reversal, the empty tomb. Paul puts well in Eph. 3: 18, “God had accomplished what the disciples could not begin to comprehend”.
As you think back on where you’ve been over the years what great reversals has God accomplished in your life? Twenty-five years ago, due to a hereditary condition, my eyes went bad and all of a sudden, I wasn’t driving anymore. So, I’m thinking, “Thanks for nothing God! How’s tis going to work?”
But as a parish family you rallied and made it work,, giving me rides and whatever else I’ve needed else. So, here I am. That’s just another example of God accomplishing in us one of those unexpected reversals that only God can pull off. I bet you could name a few of them yourself. (By the way, I did this at my fiftieth last spring but if you’ve ever given me a ride please stand. Thank you.)
Those unexpected reversals in our lives that only God can pull off, they’re like mini resurrections. At first glance things don’t look that good. But eventually things turn out far better than we ever thought they would. Like Jesus on the cross at first it feels like dying. But then like Jesus raised from the dead out of nowhere something new comes alive in us.
Those mini-resurrections, those unexpected reversals that only God can pull off, look for them. Thank God for them. The God who raised Jesus from the dead can do the same for us if we let him.
