THE PLANT THAT NEVER DIED Ben Patterson Leadership Summer 1980

One of the most remarkable plants in nature is the ibervilliea sonorae. It can exist for seemingly indefinite periods without soil or even water. As Annie Dillard tells the story, one was kept in the New York Botanical Gardens for 7 years without soil or water. For 7 springs it sent out little anticipatory shoots looking for water. Finding none, it simply dried up again, hoping for better luck next year.

Now, that’s what I call motivated: hanging on, keeping on when its not easy.

But motivation can run out, even for the ibervilliea sonorae. In the 8^th year of no soil and water, the rather sadistic folks at the New York Botanical Gardens had a dead plant on their hands.

The word "paradise" is a Persian word meaning a walled garden used by a king. When a Persian monarch wished to honor one of his subjects he made him a companion of his garden and he was chosen to walk in the royal garden with his king. Jesus was promising the penitent thief not only immortality, but an honoured place of a companion of the heavenly garden. "You will be with me" said Jesus.

"Mortal" speaks of the fact that we are certain to die, but "perishable" indicates that humans deteriorate. Our bodies begin to sag and smell; our hair grays and falls out; we degenerate. We fear this, too. But the writer of Hebrews says that "Christ will deliver those who through fear of death are subject to slavery all their lives." Fear of death makes us liable to slavery. We will act foolishly, committing ourselves to self-destructive habits, enslaving ourselves, because we see that our bodies are deteriorating. We anaesthetize ourselves with drugs and alcohol. We try to act younger than we are and make fools of ourselves, sometimes even destroying our families in the process of trying to reverse the irreversible process of aging. Because we are perishable, we try all kinds of potions and products, we even become involved in sexual misconduct to try and escape the inevitable. But we cannot prevent our bodies from deteriorating as we grow older. Christians, however, have the certain hope that one day they will be given new bodies that will respond to their spirits and express the glory of God. Believers therefore are not to be partakers in fending off the process of immortality and perishability, trying to thwart an inevitable process. Our hope is in the Lord.

THEY TOOK HIS CLOTHES TOO The Hiding Place Fleming H. Revell, Co., p. 196

At the inhuman prison in Germany every Friday the nazis made the prisoners completely undress for medical inspection. They were humiliated, the women, at having to march by grinning guards. On one of those mornings Corrie Ten Boom says, "yet another page in the Bible leapt into life for me."

"He hung naked on the Cross."

"I had not known – had not thought… the paintings, the carved crucifixes showed at least a scrap of cloth. But this, I suddenly knew, was the respect and reverence of the artist. But oh – at the time itself, on that other Friday morning – there had been no reverence. No more than I saw in the faces around us now.

"I leaned toward Betsie, ahead of me in line. Her shoulder blades stood out sharp and thin beneath her blue mottled skin."

"’Betsie, they took His clothes too.’"

"Ahead of me I heard a gasp. ‘Oh Corrie. And I never thanked Him…’"

WHITE PIGEON, MI – INDIAN LOVE G. Ray Jordan, The Supreme Possession (1945)

Across the north Indiana state line, in Michigan, there is a little town called "Wabemen." The translation of this Indian word is "White Pigeon." There is a thrilling story connected with the village. It concerns the coming of the early white settlers in 1830 to this community. Following their arrival, some of the Indians became Christians. Among those Indians who were converted to Christianity was one who came to be completely devoted to the white settlers. This convert to Christianity ran 60 miles to the settlement in order to warn his friends. Even though he was an Indian and his strength was great, the 60 mile dash was too much of a strain. He shouted his word of warning as he staggered into the settlement and fell dead. His heart had been too severely taxed. There is now a monument in the little village. On it are inscribed the words: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend."

QUOTE: The stone was rolled away from the door, not to permit Christ to come out, but enable the disciples to go in. – Peter Marshall.

THE CROSS BECAME HIS THRONE C. Barry McCarty The Lookout 4/16/2000 p. 7

Menelik II was the emperor of Ethiopia from 1889 to 1909. He transformed the country from a collection of semi-independent states into a united nation. In 1890, as part of his efforts to modernize his country, he ordered 3 electric chairs from New York. The only problem was that in 1890, Ethiopia didn’t have electricity. So Menelik ended up using one of the electric chairs as his throne. Likewise, Jesus made an instrument of execution his throne.

Dear Eutychus:

Our preacher said, on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think?

Sincerely, Bewildered

Dear Bewildered:

Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear through his heart; embalm him; put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens.

Sincerely, Eutychus

poem: IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE FOR HIM… Aretta Loving

"It was not possible" for Him.

What is this I read? Not possible for Jesus?

Heresy!

Creator. Mighty God.

Ruler of the universe.

He spoke.

They did.

Ah, but read on:

It was not possible for Him to be held by death.

It was not possible for Him

To be held by that last enemy.

He lives!

And because He lives,

I live.

Now

And Eternally.

Oh glad message, the message of Easter –

It was not possible for death to hold Him!

QUOTE: The cross is a denial that self assertiveness can ever be a satisfying way. – Lean Morris, The Atonement

CAMELOT AND THE CROSS Discipleship Journal Ken Gire March/April 1999 p. 50

(Addressing the question: Why couldn’t god just forgive everyone with one sweeping judicial pardon? He was God, wasn’t He?) I found the answer to that question in a scene from Camelot, where the adulterous relationship between Guenevere and Arthur’s most trust knight, Sir Lancelot, has divided the Round Table. When the scheming Mordred catches them in a clandestine encounter, Lancelot escapes. Guenevere is not so fortunate. She faces a trial. The jury finds her guilty and sentences her to the flame.

As the day of execution nears, people come from miles around with one question in their minds: Would the king let her die?

Mordred gleefully captures the complexity of Arthur’s predicament:

Arthur! What a magnificent dilemma!

Let her die, your life is over;

Let her live, your life’s a fraud.

Which will it be, Arthur?

Do you kill the queen or kill the law?

The fact that Arthur was Guenevere’s husband, and, at the same time, her king, created the dilemma. If he carries out the sentence, he upholds the law and validates himself to be a just and impartial king. Yet, in doing so, he calls into question his love. Would the king burn Guenevere? His tender wife whom he affectionately called his Jenny? Jenny who gave sparkle to his eyes? Jenny, who gave joy to his heart?

His heart tells him to set her free. If he did, it would certainly remove any doubt of his love. But by bending justice and showing partiality, he would call into question his right to rule.

Tragically but resolutely, Arthur decides: "Treason has been committed! The jury has ruled! Let justice be done!"

High from the castle window stands Arthur, as Guenevere enters the courtyard…. She walks to the unlit stake, where the executioner stands with waiting torch. Arthur turns away, emotion brimming in his eyes.

A herald: "The Queen is at the stake, Your Majesty. Shall I signal the torch?"

Arthur is devastated. Again the herald calls, this time with greater urgency: "Your Majesty…! Your Majesty…!"

But the king cannot answer.

Arthur’s love for jenny spills from his broken heart: "I can’t! I can’t! I can’t let her die!"

Seeing Arthur crumble, Mordred relishes the moment: "Well, you’re human after all, aren’t you Arthur? Human and helpless."

Tragically, Arthur realizes the truth of Mordred’s remark. Being only human, (the embodiment of the ideal human righteous king) he is indeed helpless. But where the story ends, the greatest story ever told just begins.

THE SURPRISE RESURRECTION OF FRANK CLEMENTS Bob Russell The Lookout 6/1/97 p. 14

When Frank Clements turned 18 he joined the Air Force and soon became a 2nd Lieutenant. He flew bombing missions across the English Channel during WWII. One day a message from the military came to the Clements' home in Big Spring, Texas. It read, "Frank Clements, missing in action." Frank's parents left their home and their little repair shop and hurried to the E. 4th St. Baptist church to inform their minister, Elmer Dunham. They wept and prayed together that Frank's life would be spared.

Two weeks later the dreaded telegram came that read, "Frank Clements killed in action in the English channel. Our deepest sympathy." Frank's parents were overwhelmed with grief. The town of big Spring had a memorial service to remember Frank. Someone placed a red rose on the empty casket. The entire community mourned his death.

But Lt. Frank Clements from Big Spring, Texas was not dead. Another Frank Clements with a different middle initial had been shot down and killed over the English Channel. Frank from Big Spring was shot down also, but had survived the crash. He took a small boat back across the channel and returned to the Allied base.

Since he'd gone through such an ordeal, Frank was given a leave of absence and permission to take a furlough back to the States. He was a young man and decided it was not necessary to call in advance. He wanted to surprise his family and was not aware of the premature notice of his death and the grief that his loved ones were experiencing at home.

Frank flew to New York, then to Dallas, and then took a Greyhound bus to Big Spring. He walked home from the bus depot. He approached the little repair shop in the back of the house and stood in the doorway watching his dad fixing a small appliance. His dad's back was turned when Lt. Frank Clements simply called out quietly, "Dad... Dad."

When the old man turned and saw his son he couldn't believe his eyes. he raced to his son and uncharacteristically embraced him. Then Mr. Clements raced toward the house shouting, "He's alive! He's alive! Frank's alive!" Then next day the headline of the local paper read "LT. FRANK CLEMENTS RETURNS - ALIVE!!!"

A Sunday School teacher sent her young students out into the nearby grassy field with plastic eggs with instructions to collect something that they thought represented "new life."

When the children came back about 15 minutes later, each child had collected either a piece of grass, a leaf, an insect, etc.. Finally, her attention shifted to one of the shyer girls of the class. "And what did you bring?" the teacher asked.

Quietly the little girl handed the teacher her egg. But when the teacher opened the egg, she found that it was empty. "But didn't you understand what I asked you to do?" she asked.

"Oh yes," the girl said with a smile, "but wasn't the tomb empty?"

A preacher once told me of a friend of his who had died. The friend was over 6' tall and weighed 200# and wanted to be cremated. At the cemetery, the funeral director drove up in his family car (no hearse needed), went around to back door and took out a container the size of a shoe box (he didn't need pall bearers) and he carried the preacher's 200# friend to the grave. Now you tell me how God is going to raise up that 200# man out of that shoe box. It's a mystery to me!

But when you think of it, that's probably one of the easiest miracles God will ever have to perform. The hardest would seem to be when He formed all that is out of "nothing". If God could do that, it seems only a simple matter for Him to rearrange a few molecules of cremated 6' tall man and raise him bodily from the grave.

2 men were driving along U.S. 50 that runs thru Cincinnati when a radio DJ told the story of a painter who had died and was cremated. His friends had apparently mixed his remains with white paint and the paint was used to paint the white lines along U.S. 50 somewhere between Cinci and St. Louis. One of the men turned to the other and said "Now you tell me how God is ever going to get that man up out of that paint."

It's a mystery to me! But it's not a mystery in so far as God is concerned. Paul says that when Jesus comes there will be a great shout and a loud trumpet blast and the Lord shall descend, and if need be He'll come with a celestial scraper and scrape that man up off of the pavement and he will zoom up to meet Jesus in the air - if he's a Christian. If he's not - meet God at white throne and Satan at lake of fire.

Years ago, in an arrangement with the city of Philadelphia, a scientific experiment was conducted on the body of a criminal who had been hung. Ten minutes after its execution, the body was transferred to a nearby laboratory for examination by 3 noted physiologists. By prodding the body with electrical needles in the brain and nervous system, these scientists succeeded in causing this corpse to do several life like activities: the hand clasped and unclasped, an arm raised, the respiratory system was activated for a few moments, his mouth contorted as if to finish some statement left unsaid from the scaffold and at one point the body even sat upright... but the scientist NEVER SUCCEEDED IN RESTORING LIFE!

Three Crosses stood on Golgotha's brow that April. It has been said that on one a thief died IN sin and was lost. On another cross, a thief died TO sin and was saved. On the third cross, a Lamb died FOR sin, and was the Son of God.

The body of the great 17th-century religious emancipator Roger Williams was eaten by a tree. Williams died in 1683 and was buried in a poorly marked grave in the backyard of his home. Fifty-six years later, a workman accidentally broke into the emancipator's coffin while excavating a nearby grave, exposing the bones. In 1860, a descendant of Williams, Stephen Randall, ordered workmen to exhume the remains from the Providence, R.I., plot and transfer them to a more suitable tomb. But the excavation yielded only a few badly rusted coffin nails and scraps of rotten wood. Not a bone was found.

The workmen, however, did find something extraordinary: The ramifying root of a nearby apple tree lay exactly where the remains should have been, and it had taken the shape of Williams' body, from head to heels. As it grew, the root apparently had encountered Williams' skull and followed the path of least resistance, inching down the side of his head, backbone, hips and legs, molding itself closely to the contours of his body. The corpse itself was gone - absorbed into the tree through the roots.

The tree had eaten Roger Williams.

The human shaped root was removed for safekeeping and today is on display at the Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence.

All these questions have the same answer.

What is it that gives a widow courage as she stands beside a fresh grave?

What is the ultimate hope of the cripple, the amputee, the abused, the burn victim?

How can the parents of brain-damaged or physically handicapped children keep from living their entire lives totally and completely depressed?

Why would anyone who is blind or deaf or paralyzed be encouraged when they think of the life beyond?

How can we see past the martyrdom of some helpless hostage or devoted missionary?

Where do the thoughts of a young couple go when they finally recover from the grief of losing their baby?

When a family receives the tragic news that a little daughter was found dead or their dad was killed in a plane crash or a son overdosed on drugs, what single truth becomes their whole focus?

What is the final answer to pain, mourning, senility, insanity, terminal diseases, sudden calamities, and fatal accidents?

By now you've guessed correctly: the hope of bodily resurrection.

A conversation between a Christian missionary and a Muslim illustrates a great point. The Mohammedan wanted to impress the missionary with what he considered to be the superiority of Islam. So he said, "When we go to Mecca, we at least find a coffin, but when you Christians go the Jerusalem, your Mecca, you find nothing but an empty grave." To this the believer replied, "That is just the difference, Mohammed is dead and in his coffin. And all other systems of religion and philosophy are in their coffins. But Christ is risen, and all power in heaven and on earth is given to Him! He is alive forevermore!

In a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, is a grave on which were placed huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together and fastened with heavy steel clasps. It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet strangely, she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. On the marker were inscribed these words: "This burial place must never be opened." In time, a seed, covered over by the stones, began to grow. Slowly it pushed its way through the soil and out from beneath them. As the trunk enlarged, the great slabs were gradually shifted so that the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets. A tiny seed had become a tree that had pushed aside the stones.

What is this day all about? Hiding eggs for kids to rout?

Cakes and cookies shaped like lambs? Pink Chapeaus on Pink Madams?

THAT'S NOT WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT! Who got buried then got out?

Leaving no one any doubt, "HE IS RISEN," HEAR THEM SHOUT!"

THAT'S what this day's all about.

EASTER LILIES AND PERENNIALS R.Digest 4/76 p. 55

The Sunday after Easter our minister got up and looked over the congregation, which was quite a bit smaller than the previous week, and said, "Well, I see the Easter lilies are gone, but the perennials are still here

QUOTE: One trouble with the churches is that too many people want to have Easter without Calvary. -- Lawrence Pearsall Jacks

During Napoleon's Austrian campaign his army advanced to within six miles of Feldkirch. It looked as though Bonaparte's men would take Feldkirch without resistance. But as Napoleon's army advanced toward their objective in the night, the Christians of Feldkirch gathered in a little church to pray. It was Easter Eve.

The next morning at sunrise the bells of the village pealed out across the countryside. Napoleon's army, not realizing it was Easter Sunday, thought that in the night the Austrian army had moved into Feldkirch and that the bells were ringing in jubilation. Napoleon ordered a retreat, and the battle at Feldkirch never took place. The Easter bells caused the enemy to retreat, and peace reigned in the Austrian countryside.

At this Easter time many of you are surrounded by enemies which storm the citadel of your soul. The Easter bells, when you realize their full significance, will cause the threatening forces to retreat.

JESUS SEES SHADOW = MORE WINTER -- Ben Haden

A group of four year old's were gathered in a Sunday school class in Chattanooga. The teacher looked at the class and asked this question: "Does anyone know what today is?" A little four-year-old girl held up her hand and said," Yes, today is Palm Sunday." The

teacher exclaimed, "That's fantastic, that's wonderful. Now does anyone know what next Sunday is?" The same little girl held up her hand and said, "Yes, next Sunday is Easter Sunday." Once again the teacher said, "That's fantastic. Now, does anyone know what makes next Sunday Easter?" The same little girl responded and said, "Yes, next Sunday is Easter because Jesus rose from the grave" and before the teacher could congratulate her, she kept on talking and said, "but if he sees his shadow -- he has to go back in for seven weeks."

If a buried bulb can become a flower

If an egg can soar and sing

Why doubt the resurrection power

Of the risen Lord and King?

Rejoice today in flower and song

No more is Golgatha grim;

Let faith today be pure and strong,

Happy to worship Him.