Happy He has Risen Day...

Today was a normal Easter Sunday, however, there wasn't as much leading up to the day as I had remembered in years past... Maybe cause our church did not follow an advent schedule this year accounts for why I'm a bit off.  It seems like Easter snuck up on my this year.  The last few years we were in Germany and we had participated in advent, singing in an Easter chior or playing "Christ the Lord Has Risen Today" on the trumpet accompanied by Mr. and Mrs Gorske, and Noele Sadler on the Cello, French Horn and Piano respectively.  This year  I was asked to play a part for the offertory "Up from the Grave He Arose" and it is a wonderful hymn.  My fellow trumpetier Glen and pianist Cindy I'm sure had doubts after our morning practice as I could not for the life of me get my lips working.   I sounded almost dying goosish.  It was quite bad actually.  I had many thoughts of recusing myself from the festivities when I was reminded by Glen that it is all for His glory; good or bad.  So after taking an hour off after our morning practice we were called into action and it went off without a hitch.  Although, Tanna said I did become about 6 deeper shades of red when hitting my high Fs. 

After service we took a few photos at home to commemorate this years Easter Sunday dress in hopes of finding a suitable Christmas card photo early.  You can see some of them below.

As I sat through the sermon I found myself contemplating what kind of Easter sermon we would hear today.  Would we hear the standard or would we hear something more compelling.  We heard the latter.  We heard of how significant God's death was for the atonement of our sins.  How the shedding of His blood allows for our sins to be washed away, but what was new for this sermon was the significance of his resurrection.  We saw that the finished work of God would not have been accomplished in Christ had we not seen the resurrection.  That the atoning work of Christ would not have been enough to satisfy God's wrath for our sins.  Of course had he not resurrected His Son.  The Good News is... He did... and it was the truthfulness of these events that took place that allowed the remaining 11 to go out and continue to proclaim God's word and the forgiveness of sins through the atoning work of Christ. 

Happy He Has Risen Day and take joy in the fact that this isn't myth or fairy tale and that we have a hope in a God who sacrificed His Son so that we might be saved. 

Tim