My friend!

Something has happened.

I’m writing this with my thoughts tumbling, one over another. So far, I only know bits and pieces, but the news has flooded my heart and mind with great expectation and hope.

Yesterday the grapevine sizzled with rumors that the teacher from Nazareth is alive. Again!

I know, I know. It sounds like something only a fool would believe. I could not believe it either, until I talked with one man who actually walked and talked with him. And I tell you, that man is changed in a way I’ve never seen before.

You see what this means? If the teacher has really beaten death, if the power of God can defeat our most relentless enemy, and if that power is in this world and working for those who follow this man…

That changes everything!

I wanted you to know.

Dear Friend,

Yesterday was a long, dark Sabbath. I confess I felt as though there was no point at all in observing the Sabbath. God seems to have abandoned us.

If this teacher truly was sent from God, why would God allow such an awful ending to his life? Why cut him off before he had accomplished his mission? What about all those promises God made us?

Or perhaps this wasn’t the one we have been waiting for. Or perhaps… perhaps God has changed his mind.

I was just beginning to hope this man could change the world. Could change our lives. MY life. We couldn’t help but hope, as we listened to his words. He was introducing us to God in a completely new way. At least, I thought I was beginning to see God in all this.

But where was God on Friday?

My friend, I think you’ll understand the dark places my mind is going to. Any hope that had begun to flicker in me was snuffed out on Friday.

Dear Friend,

I hardly know what to write. Yesterday was such a terrible, black day.

You remember the man I’ve been telling you about? The teacher who claimed to be from God? He’s been executed. He’s dead.

Everything happened so fast. He was arrested sometime during the night, and apparently there was a mob and a sham of a trial, and the next thing we knew, he was hanging on a cross out there on Golgotha.

Strange things happened yesterday–and just at the time he died. Unusual darkness. An earthquake. Some trouble at the Temple (the details I’ve heard are unbelievable, impossible, so I still need to find out what the truth is about that incident). And some people are telling wild tales about ghosts walking the streets of the city.

Whoever or whatever he really was, his death seemed to shake heaven and earth.

But all that’s left now is this heavy, hopeless sadness. Evil wins. Again.