CHRIST IS RISEN! SO WHAT?
Easter Sunday has once again come and gone. Hopefully the glorious music and worship keep lingering in your hearts and spirits as they do in mine. Among many of the things said on Easter Sunday was the reminder to greet one another often with the traditional Easter greeting, “Christ is risen!” To which a parishioner once replied “Yes, nice sentiment, Pastor, but honestly: so what?”
As I write this column, I enjoy the warm-ish sun filtering through the window in my office. While the warmer temperatures and the sunshine can help boost our overall mood following a seemingly endless winter, for many people there are still dark clouds hanging over them, obscuring the ability to enjoy life fully. For some it may be health issues, or the heartache of a broken relationship, while for others it is the specter of an economic downturn that affects their everyday existence. If left unattended, many of these heavy burdens tend to only increase in weight with time, and there comes a breaking point when these burdens reach unbearable proportions. Many are probably familiar with the saying, “Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill,” but what are we to do when life has dealt us a blow and we stand facing a sheer unconquerable mountain?
Whenever dark clouds seem to gain the upper hand in my life, I remember an event in the life of the British writer Thomas Carlyle. Let me briefly share his story here.
One of Carlyle’s major works is the voluminous French Revolution. Following at least two years of painstaking research and writing diligently day after day, page after page, with a goose quill and inkwell, Carlyle delivered the bulky manuscript bundle to his friend and neighbor, John Stuart Mill, to read the manuscript and comment on it. Several days later Mill appeared on Carlyle’s doorstep, visibly shaken and depressed over something. As it turned out, Mill’s maid had thoughtlessly used the manuscript pages to light a fire in the fireplace!
For days Thomas Carlyle moved about in a stupor. A major part of his life’s work gone up in smoke! He raged, groaned, and declared that never again would he be able to pick up a pen and write.
One morning, while gazing over the rooftops of London, Carlyle watched a stone mason building a wall. This huge task was done by tackling the wall bit by bit, one brick at a time. In that moment Carlyle received fresh inspiration and energy. No longer would he spend his days grieving over his great loss. No, he would accept the fact that the manuscript was gone, and then, like the stone mason, he would build his monumental work on the French Revolution again, word after word, page by page. In that fashion Thomas Carlyle rewrote his history of the French Revolution, a book that even today counts among the world’s greatest literary achievements.
One of our proverbs suggests that “if you want to move a mountain, begin by carrying away one small stone at a time.” We live in the days after Easter Sunday. We can face each day with the assurance that the risen Christ is walking by our side, bit by bit, step by step, day by day. May we be encouraged to begin moving the mountains in our lives by carrying away small stones. Because Christ IS RISEN, and because CHRIST LIVES, WE can face all of our tomorrows.
Christ is risen indeed!
Pastor Daniel