The tomb is still empty!

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee

Good morning, friends! It's Sunday again. I sure hope you haven't caught the "It's the week after Easter so let's skip worship" bug

.

Last week I sat behind a young family who were visiting First Presbyterian. Their kids attend our preschool and they decided to come to church and check things out.

"The beautiful thing is that church is this wonderful every Sunday," I said. "This place rocks more than just on Easter Sunday exactly because of Easter Sunday!"

# 1: My first task this morning is to invite you to take a look at yesterday's post if you missed it. I take some time to discuss a difficult subject, The Suffering of Children. I believe it's important that we look at tough issues through the lens of faith, even if the issues seem unresolvable - especially if they're unresolvable.

# 2: LOVE WINS - LOVE WINS - LOVE WINS!!! For today I simply want to re-iterate the foundational thesis that is at the heart of all of my writing and speaking. Jesus defeated death so that the dark principle of decay would cease to stand as the absolute bottom line for human existence. Instead, Jesus raised the new standard of Irrepressible Light and Eternal Life.

We have this choice, then, each and every day that we reside on Earth in this human frame. We can exist, and work, and contribute to relationships as if defeat and disappointment were a done deal and that it's only a matter of time before the other shoe drops...

Look! The tomb is empty!

...Or we can go about our lives in the sure and certain knowledge that:

• We are children of the Great King,
• participants in the New and Living Way of Jesus,
• and we are loved with an Everlasting Love
• and wrapped in the Everlasting Arms.
• We are held in hands that have more strength in one little pinkie than the Lords of Death and Decay can summon in all the vast and thundering armies of Darkness.

That's what I want to say this morning!

In love, and because of love - DEREK