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Pastor · Sunday Schedule · FBC
News
2002
From the Pastor
"Where's Peter"
In my mind I see Jesus lifted from the grave. He stretches his arms, takes off the grave clothes, steps outside the tomb and rubs his eyes. He is alive, raised from the dead, but his mind is not focused on the triumph of God's victory. It is focused on Peter! Where's Peter.
Peter had fled from Jesus before the crucifixion. He had denied his Lord. He had run away.
Jesus, raised from the dead, is thinking of Peter. What he is thinking about, however, is not retribution but reconciliation. He doesn't want to punish Peter, he doesn't want to get even with Peter; he wants Peter to know he forgives him, he wants to embrace Peter, he wants Peter to know that he still loves him.
So, he instructs his angel to tell the three women who first went to the empty tomb to find Peter and tell him Jesus will meet him in Galilee.
I would love to have seen that reunion. I can imagine the agony in Peter's soul the three days Jesus laid in the tomb, a loyalty, love and friendship ruined by four words, "I never knew him." But, then, for Peter to then again see Jesus, and not to be rebuked by him but embraced by him. Oh, the love of Jesus for each of us.
I say "for each of us," because what I believe is that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was not only Peter's name that was in the mind of Jesus, but each of us. He held each name in his mind and he said to himself, "Where's David. . . or Susan or Harry or Nathan or Frieda or Alexander or Brittany."
We were in the mind of Jesus, by name, and at the resurrection his search for us began. His search still goes on, he is still inquiring, and when we are found by other disciples, other women from the empty tomb, other angels, whoever, we are still given the same message, "He will meet you in Galilee."
One of the Galilee's, for us, might be church on Easter Sunday morning.
Could it be how ever distant we have been from the church, no matter how infrequently we have attended, or perhaps not at all, there is a way Jesus reaches out to us, calls us by name, an invitation is extended by someone, and through that someone, we hear, "The risen Christ is waiting for you at First Baptist on Easter Sunday morning."
I hope each of us enters into Easter Sunday morning, driving to church and finding our seat in the sanctuary with a sense that we are coming to meet the risen Lord who has called us by name. And, I hope each of us will be like the three women at the tomb, taking that invitation to others, inviting others to join us Easter Sunday, knowing in our heart through our invitation that the name of the one we invite has been in the mind of Jesus from the first day Jesus stood outside the empty tomb.
A joyous and blessed Easter to everyone.
Dr. David W. Andersen
            
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