It is Easter Sunday. It is the third day as the Lord had promised. He has risen from the dead. Let us look back at the trial of Holy Thursday. What did they say against the Lord? They accused the Lord of blasphemy because he said destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. The temple was indeed destroyed but not the temple that they were looking at, but another kind of temple. Why were they angry because the temple was a reason for pride. The Jews thanked the Lord for three important blessings. The king, the land and the temple. The land is occupied by the Romans and the kingdom is divided and they had only one reason – It is the temple. The gold was there. Precious stones were there and labor of love, labor of devotion. They had reason to be proud. The temple represented everything that was precious for them. And the Lord said everything that is precious about you, everything that you hold dear in your heart will be destroyed. My dear friends, everything precious to you will be destroyed. Everything precious to you will be removed from you. Everything precious to you will be taken away. Everything. The scriptures are clear about that and spiritual literature is also clear about that. Everything will be removed from us. Why? Because they are not God.
Because they are not God, they will be removed. Because they are not God, they have an expiration date. Because they are not God, they have a deadline. They have a lifespan not longer than that. But to lose everything that is precious to you, to lose everything that is very dear and priceless is only one half of the story. Rhe other half of the story is once you have lost everything…once you have lost everybody…once you have lost everything that you are proud of, then they will return to you in another form, they will return to you in another manner and this time accompanied by the Lord, never to be taken away from you again. Why is it important that all the things precious, all the people precious should be removed from us? Because the longer they stay with us, the longer we clutch onto them, the stronger is our grip on them, the more strongly we cling to them, and what happens they replace God in our lives. They become our false security. They become our false comfort and we start to think that we cannot live without them. That is not true. We can live without these precious things in our lives. We can live without them. We cannot live without God. Churches, temples, books, writings possessions, properties, buildings, universities, colleges, historical buildings, historical artifacts – all of these are precious but if you cling too much and if you hold on to them too long they can become obstacles for us to worship the Lord. Today on Easter Sunday, we are reminded there will always be a Good Friday when everything that is precious, everything that is priceless, everything we hold dear, everything we call beloved will be removed from us. But on the third day, they will be returned to us and it is the risen Lord who will bring them back to us. And when the Lord brings them back to us, they will be in the right place. No one, nothing ever should take the place the position of God, the value, the importance of God in our lives. It is the third day. As the Lord had promised, he has risen from the dead. It is the third day and it is not only the Lord who has returned. The Lord has returned, carrying with him the loved ones we have lost, the precious things we have lost, the buildings, the history books, the writings that we have lost and the Lord brings them back to us. This time resurrected also. So it is not only the Lord who resurrects. It is very important that our precious things die and be allowed to rise again in the hands of the Lord, never to be seen, never to be enjoyed except in the hands of the Lord. Because all these things, all these relationships, all these titles are secondary. It is a sobering thought to be reminded that everything precious will be removed from us. But do not be afraid. They will be removed because they are not God. At the end of the day, when everything has been removed from us, we will be standing on solid rock, the bedrock Himself. It is the Lord – risen from the dead. And if we hold him dear in our hearts, we will understand – only the Lord, only in the Lord, always the Lord. In the Lord is our happiness, only Jesus, always Jesus – is all that we need. Happy Easter! Happy new life! Happy new beginning.
