Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ
Jesus.
(Romans 6.11
NRSV)
Three or four weeks after Ron's death, while visiting their mother, Stephen went to the cemetery in the mountains where they had buried Ron. It was a cold, rainy, late winter afternoon--the kind of weather that chills your bones.
When he got to the cemetery he couldn't find the place where Ron was buried. A stone had not yet been placed on his grave, and a number of others had been buried in the same general area.
As he stood in the cold and wind and rain, Pastor Stephen Brown began to sob. "God, this has been the worst month of my life," he cried, "and now I can't even find my brother's grave."
Stephen Brown testifies, "Jesus doesn't visit cemeteries often, but He did that day. I knew there was a presence, the presence of the One I had almost forgotten in all my grief and the grief of my family. Jesus came and said, 'Why are you seeking the living among the dead?'" Those words from the Master comforted that heart-broken pastor, and he hasn't been back to that cemetery since. He knows now that the cemetery is not Ron's home. Ron is alive because his Redeemer is alive!
Dear God, help me to be alive in Jesus Christ my living savior. Amen.
