Rev Bill

I have posted my sermon from yesterday on my sermon blog. Based on the readings for Easter this year — Isaiah 65:17-25, 1 Corinthians `15:19-26, and John 20:1-18 it is entitled: “The Greatest Despair And The Greatest Hope.

Here’s a portion of it:

I read a story some time ago in the June 1995 issue of Guidepost magazine that I would like to share with you. It was the story of a woman caught up in her own Good Friday experience—her time of greatest despair and sorrow — that cut the foundation from beneath her life. Her son had been killed in an automobile accident, and grief descended on her like the grief that overcame those first disciples when Jesus died.
A year later, still burdened by her grief, she saw that it was a nice fall day. Before her son was killed, she had bought some jonquil bulbs to plant in your yard –– but then her son was killed, and she forgot about the bulbs — but now it was a year later, and she happened across those bulbs, and thought it might brighten her spirits to get out in the sunshine and plant them. She proceeded to do just that. She dug a hole in the ground and planted a bulb. Then she dug another hole and planted another bulb. But then the bulb in her hand crumbled, and she found herself with a handful of dust. “Dead!” she cried. Her bulbs, having spent a year in storage, had died and were no longer good for anything. Angry, she crushed the remaining bulbs and threw the dust into the wind. Well,
winter came and went. Springtime came. Then one morning the woman looked through the window –– and there she saw a field of yellow jonquils. The bulbs that she had thought dead had come to life under the winter snow, and were now brightening her yard –– and her spirits. She ended her story writing:
I stood still before this unexpected garden. And clearly, as if spoken aloud, I heard the promise: I am the resurrection and the life:
he that believeth in me,
though he were dead yet shall he live.
Now, each spring when the jonquils bloom, I remember, and I answer, “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

You can read the sermon here.

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