Almighty God, grant that we who have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection may by Your grace confess in our life and conversation that Jesus is Lord and God; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Week after week she came to church. She always had a smile for this young pastor who was often rushing about before a service began. Her back was stooped, and her gate was slow. She needed a walker. I am a little closer now to her age and I know little better the aches and pains she must have endured. I was but the last of many pastors whom she had known. Her life had been long and rich and filled with hymns and psalms and spiritual songs.
May we who have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection…goes this prayer. For almost 90 Easters I don’t think she missed a single one. What is more, if you think about it, every Sunday is a little festival of Easter. She had celebrated Easter. Her ready smile and gentle words were a confession that her life, both now and in eternity, was in Jesus’ capable hands. He is her Lord and God. A few years after I got there we gathered to grieve and laugh at her funeral. We grieved her absence through death and rejoiced in her life through His promise. She built no towering edifice which men a thousand years from now will remember. She built something far better and longer lasting. She rested in the grace of God and was made into a princess of heaven, her smile will last for an eternity.