It's Friday, but Sunday's Coming!

Dead. For anyone who's lost a loved one, especially a child, a beloved spouse, a dear grandparent or parent, a best friend, nothing is more devastating than death. Life itself seems finished. Nothing is left but time, empty, dreary minutes, hours, days, weeks...

We live under the curse, for by Adam's sin and all our subsequent sinning, death is our condition and our future.  Most of us fear death to some extent; many, without any hope of life after death, fear death almost beyond reason.

I'm nearly 71. My health is okay, but my knees have slowed me down to a lame stumble, and my back aches. My income is adequate (God is good!), but I've also gone through the worst times of my life on my own. I don't have any certainty about tomorrow. No wife, no children, no grandkids, not even a close friend in the area. My mother is gone, died at 89; but I wasn't much help for her. I am glad for my baby brother who looked after her, but I'm the oldest...It was my job! Men like me don't usually do well, at this stage of life. What does the future hold; why should someone like me care?

I tutor refugees, international students, and recent immigrants (though not right now with everything shut down). I have a vision...for a school to teach English to refugees and immigrants. What irony! I have very little and hardly anyone who cares. Why me? Is it a vision or a nightmare, a cruel joke to torment someone who has no chance of see his dream fulfilled? I used to think I could do just about anything I set my mind to do; in that sense, I've been an optimist. I believed in my abilities, and I believe in God. Now it's easy to wonder what I've ever really accomplished. Where are the signs of my success? For a man, a sense of failure leads to overwhelming misery. Most of my peers have retired. My lifetime in ministry didn't leave that as an option. How dare I, of all people, have a vision of the future?

We call it “Good Friday.” Outside of Jerusalem, an itinerant rabbi name Jesus, a lot like me in having nothing except a handful of followers, was nailed to a wooden cross from hands and feet, where he hung in appalling agony until he died from excruciating (a word for pain drawn from this event) torment and suffocation. When he cried out, “It is finished!” his followers were all gone but one, a guy named John to whom he'd entrusted his grieving mother. He died, as we all do in the end, alone. His death like no other was wrong, undeserved, and yet even his heavenly father abandoned him there on that cross. It was the end of hope...for him...for his followers...for the world!

Actually..."It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming!"

Thirty or forty years ago, Tony Campolo used that phrase in a powerful sermon that I will shamelessly borrow: “It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming!” Actually he borrowed the phrase. I think it was Campolo who wrote a song. The words are a metaphor but the reality is, well, more real than anything. Jesus death was not the end; his tomb, sealed, guarded, containing his broken, tortured body, is not a symbol for what was lost, only to be sadly remembered. It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming!

Anempty tomb—I saw it, vacant, outside the old city of Jerusalem—is a symbol for hope, a hope that will not disappoint. Is that the same tomb? As a guide said when I was there, while we cannot be sure, on thing is clear...that tomb is empty!

Resurrection is not scientific. The dead do not live again, at least by our understanding of medicine. We may be able to bring people from the brink, perhaps even moments past the brink, but after 3 days? God isn't bound by the laws of science; he created them, spoke those very laws into existence, but he can overrule them. They exist only because he keeps them in effect by his word. Reality is greater than what we see, hear, touch, experience; his spirit is beyond all that. By science, dead is dead; but It's Friday, Sunday's Coming!

Unlike many who despair of lingering, impotent days of poverty and uselessness, I won't end my life or linger, just waiting for death to take me. If there should be little more for me, God owes me nothing more than what Jesus had. Death isn't the end, nor is the death of dreams. It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming! I've been forgiven. By grace through faith, I will enjoy life everlasting, filled with joy, body restored beyond what it never was, to be with beloved believers who've gone before. Even better, those whom I've failed or hurt and those who've abandoned me or broken my heart will be reconciled perfectly...no sorrow, no sadness, no pain, no suffering, no shame, no regrets, no death... I have no complaint. If only finally in eternity, It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming!

However, I'm not just waiting for the blessings of heaven. I don't believe in retirement. I believe my vision came from God, and he's not finished with me yet. At this moment, when everything appears hopeless, even in those moments when I fall into self-doubt...and I'm good at those...It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming! I dare to believe, not just in his provision in whatever my circumstances, since God has promised to care for me, indeed, for all those who trust him; I dare to imagine my vision realized, to start a school for refugees and immigrants; he will lead, inspire, brings others to help, provide for its facilities and staff and everything it will need. Perhaps he'll alter my vision--I've experienced that, too, but dreams are not wasted by God. It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming!

Furthermore, I feel, I sense in my soul, that he will do something amazing; in fact, I believe he already is! He doesn't have to do that; he's covered all the important questions with promises he will most definitely keep. I am watching and already proclaiming what he has done. I just have a feeling, based on nothing but  my heart and my faith, and a wild, enthusiastic, absurd but well-grounded hope, that he will surprise me...and you...and a lot of folks I will delight in telling that something remarkable, inconceivable, and awesome has happened. Yeah, I know it makes no sense...unless you know the God of the impossible, who is far more worthy of faith than a empty material, impersonal, uncaring universe, our loving heavenly father who gave his own son to defeat sin, rescue his beloved, image-bearing but sinful children, and then defeated death itself on a Resurrection Sunday two millennia ago... It's Friday, But Sunday's Coming!

(Eight years ago, I dedicated this bit of encouragement to the memory of my cousin, Gary Green, who abides now in the presence of God, along with our grandparents and his two sisters who died in early childhood, and since then, his dad (as I get older, the list grows longer!) . I grew up with family reunions, but none will compare to the one coming...because It's Friday, and Sunday's Coming)