Yesterday, my wife met me in my office, as is our normal Wednesday routine, to walk to our church Fellowship Hall for our regular mid-week meal, prayer, and Bible study. Churches across the world have similar Wednesday gatherings. She showed me an alert that she had just received that a church bus crash occurred in Texas. This morning, we know that 13 people were killed. This is incomprehensibly awful in every way. Too many questions and not nearly enough answers!
I wanted to pray for this pastor. I could not imagine myself in similar circumstances. On average, I preach about 30 funerals a year. He, very likely, is about to preach 13 funerals in a very abbreviated space of time, while at the same time preach to a whole congregation of grieving members. I wanted his name, so I went to the church’s website. His name is Brad by the way. Pray for Pastor Brad every chance you get in the next weeks.
But, in my search for his name, I noticed something else on their website that immediately grabbed my attention. Obviously on their website long before the crash yesterday, was a web banner at the top of their homepage promoting their Easter Sunday services. The banner declared, “Death Could Not Hold Him.” And, that is how we as believers make it through our darkest days. In fact, I am not sure how we do make it without this blessed truth.
This bus crash will be in the headlines all over our nation today. But, because of Jesus, there are other headlines this day and every day. What are they?
In the Book of Revelation, John envisioned several scenes in heaven with either the multitudes of the redeemed or angels singing praise. Many of their songs sound like what could have been Headlines on Resurrection Sunday. Here’s one of their songs found in Revelation 7:10: Salvation to Our God! How’s that for a headline? That’s exactly the announcement that the empty tomb makes. Everything that we believe to be true about our salvation depends on the empty tomb. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sin” (1 Corinthians 15:17). But praise be to God, because salvation belongs to our God because the tomb was empty.
Another headline could have been The kingdom of the World Has Become the Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ; and He Will Reign Forever and Ever (Rev. 11:15). The truth of the empty tomb is that the enemy has been forever defeated. Even though Satan is still at work in our world, the kingdom belongs to Christ and it will always be that way.
A third headline could have been They Overcame By the Blood of the Lamb (Rev. 12:11). In today’s society the headline could easily read Christians Win! The blood of Jesus on the cross coupled with his glorious resurrection captured an eternal victory for all who would believe in Him. As Paul rhetorically asked the Corinthians, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, Where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55). Because of the empty tomb, death has no power over us in Christ.
But perhaps the best headline of all does not come from John’s Revelation, but from the eyewitness angel who proclaimed, “He Is Not Here, for He Has Risen, Just As He Said” (Matthew 28:6). The angel’s testimony pretty well sums up what happened that Easter Sunday. Jesus was not in the tomb, He had risen from the dead, and He had prophesied that it would happen that way. Now that’s a story! However, it’s more than just a story, but it is the entire basis of our lives as Christians.
Join me today in praying for Pastor Brad McLean and First Baptist Church, New Braunfels, Texas. As you pray, remember the words of that wonderful hymn, Because He Lives.
Because He lives I can face tomorrow;
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.
Steve Horn is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Lafayette and is a former Louisiana Baptist Convention president. This column originally was published March 30, 2017, on SteveHorn.org.
