Resurrection Archives - call me pasturescott

easter means it won’t always be this way

[4 minutes, 685 words, 2 minute video]

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
Revelation 21:4

My wife shared something beautiful with me some time ago that made me think of this passage. She said, “As time goes on, I’m able to feel less and less grief about Graham‘s passing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still there, but less so as the years go by.”

I thought deeply about what she said and told her she helped me see something I’d given so little thought to. At the end of time, when Christ comes and makes all things new, the pain and heartache of our earthly years will be erased. While we will surely remember each other, we won’t remember our sorrows and sadnesses.

“Pain will be no more.” Every grief, all our tears, and the hard sting of pain will be wiped clean in that New Day.

The grace of Sandy’s lessened grief is a foretaste of the new heavens and new earth. Whatever you’re going through, Easter reminds us it’s not always going to be this way.

The resurrection means we can look forward with hope to the day our suffering will be gone. But it even means that we can look forward with hope to the day our suffering will be glorious.
On the Day of the Lord – the day that God makes everything right, the day that everything sad comes untrue – on that day the same thing will happen to your own hurts and sadness. You will find that the worst things that have ever happened to you will in the end only enhance your eternal delight. On that day, all of it will be turned inside out and you will know joy beyond the walls of the world. The joy of your glory will be that much greater for every scar you bear.
– Timothy Keller, Jesus The King

Joni Eareckson Tada attended a convention during which a speaker invited the people to kneel and pray. Everyone did except, of course, Joni.

“With everyone kneeling, I certainly stood out. And I couldn’t stop the tears.” Her emotional moment wasn’t out of self-pity; she was crying at the sight of hundreds of people on their knees before God. For Joni, it was a preview of heaven!

Sitting there, I was reminded that in heaven I will be free to jump up, dance, kick, and do aerobics. And…. sometime before the guests are called to the banquet table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the first thing I plan to do on resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees. I will quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus.

I was blessed to be interviewed for the video at the top of this post that was shown in this morning’s Easter services. Full disclosure: I felt a bit awkward sitting there watching it with everybody else! Plus, it’s not easy to see yourself up there on the big screen. Why didn’t I sit up straighter? Gracious me, I thought I was losing more weight than that! Wow, I’ve really gotten old. Aside from all my wood-hay-and-stubble vanity, I’m very pleased with how it came out.

Those opening words were so important for me to share, and I’m delighted they made the cut. Every morning I wake up, I tell Jesus two things: it’s my honor to do this for You, and please allow me to suffer well — in a way that brings You all the glory.

I don’t love paralysis, but I love Jesus. One day my eyes “will see the King in His beauty, and I will see a vast land…I will no longer see the barbarians…but I will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander…for the Majestic One, our Lord will be there…and none there will say I am sick.” (Isaiah 33:17-24, CSB)

I’ll be easy to spot; you’ll find me at the feet of Jesus.

Selah, beloved. A blessed Easter to you.

go home

[5 minutes, 852 words]

A friend passed away unexpectedly this week. I say unexpectedly, but, in reality, Frank had been in a long battle with cancer. Cancer may think it won, but, in the end, Frank did. Frank is free from pain, from endless treatments, from uncertainty, from death.

I only heard about his passing last night as I sat with the men of my Thursday night Bible group. The announcement from our leader caught me like a sucker punch to the gut. Try as I might through worship, I couldn’t focus. Frank had often led our worship before he got sick, and kept with it through much of his sickness. Frank was eighty-two, hard of hearing, and often lost his place in the songs, but we could easily give him grace; Frank loved Jesus more than anything. He also loved the old hymns and many of us old Baptists appreciated his playlist.

Earlier yesterday, before I knew of Frank’s promotion, I was reading from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter nine.

“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — then he told the paralytic, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”
So he got up and went home.
Matthew 9:6-7

“Get up, Frank. Go home.”

So he did.

My friend had been looking grayer and he’d been losing a lot of weight lately, but none of us thought it was time. My last conversation with Frank was to ask him to pray for me to be able to drink my coffee straight. He said he would. He asked me to pray for him to find some kind of special heat-resistant tape for a computer machine he was building. Mundane stuff. Coffee creamer and computers.

Then he was gone.

His last text to me was two weeks ago:

My dear Bro. Scott, trusting you are feeling better with a successful outcome. Will continue in prayer for complete healing. Your Bro. Frank

I’ve been sick myself lately, but nothing like Frank. I have a gall bladder that has to come out, kidney stones that need blasting, a fluid collection near my spine that needs draining and assessing, and osteomyelitis that needs treating. I only mention these things because Frank was really burdened for me.

I know. I’m thinking it too. A dying man, sad for his sick friend.

I confess that the original idea behind this post wasn’t about Frank; it was about me. More pointedly, how I heard that scripture yesterday morning. It actually happened to Frank, though.

“Get up, Frank. Time to go home.”

I still don’t know what time he departed this mortal coil, but I think it’s pretty cool to imagine it may have been around the time I was writing these words in my Bible notes:

1/28/26
This familiar scripture hits a new way this morning: it is my “Rise in the New Day, Scott, and go Home…because it’s time.”
Lord, I reach out my hands in faith to you.
Command it, dear Jesus. Just as you commanded the sickness to leave the centurion’s servant¹ and commanded the wind and the waves to stop². How I long to hear these words. May it be soon. In Jesus name.

Instead, my buddy Frank got the call. That’s okay; my day will come. I’ll just miss turning around and seeing a sweet-natured, smiling Frank in his Sunday spot two rows behind Sandy and me. I’m going to miss how he would light up about what supplements are helping him and all the scientific breakthroughs in cancer research he’d been reading about.

One last thing. Frank and I shared a lively discussion on a recent Sunday about how the joys of heaven will be “compounded” throughout eternity. Frank was intrigued. Any conversation about heaven interested him to no end.

“I’d like to know more about that idea, Scott,” he said. “This discussion fascinates me.”

He asked especially for scripture to help him understand it even more. I shared a few with him on the spot³ with the promise to add more that week.

I texted Frank back on the following Tuesday with a longer exposition, and included a quote I had read that put the entire idea of the exponential increase of heaven’s joys into a beautifully poetic image that Frank and I could see.

“Like waves incessantly crashing on the shore, one upon another, so the ages of eternity future will, in endless succession, echo the celebration of sinners saved by grace, all to the glory of God. There will not be in heaven a one-time momentary display of God’s goodness, but an everlasting, ever-increasing infusion and impartation of divine kindness that intensifies with every passing moment.” (Sam Storms)⁴

Well, Frank, is it so? Is it like that so far? I think Frank might say something like, “Oh, Scott, you have no idea.” One of these days I will get to, but for now I wait in hope for my time when the Master will say,

“Get up, Scott. Go home.”

And I will.

Selah, beloved.

Matthew 8:13 ↩︎
Matthew 8:26 ↩︎
Eph. 2:7; 3:16-20; Rom. 11:33; 1 Peter 1:4 ↩︎
www.desiringgod.org/messages/joys-eternal-increase-edwards-on-the-beauty-of-heaven ↩︎

are you the one?

[5 minutes]

I heard someone say the imprisoned John who wondered if he was trusting the right person to be the Messiah is a lot like us during Advent.

Can I trust you to fix what’s wrong with my world?

You’re a baby. You seem powerless. I envisioned a king and a kingdom, not a child in a manger. Are you big enough to take on the enemy and put everything right?

Now the Baby is all grown up, but Herod’s House is still up to its old shenanigans. Rome’s flags are still planted in sacred soil. All Jerusalem isn’t going out to see John anymore; he’s a has-been. Yesterday’s news. So last year.

Are you the One?

Charles Wesley intoned the groaning plea of the soul-heavy burden of advential waiting in the lyrics of his resurgent Christmas hymn:

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver,
born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thine own eternal spirit
rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.

▫️Charles Wesley▫️

Keith Getty remarked,

In the third and fourth lines of this first verse, the words fear and rest are juxtaposed reminding us that Christmas is often a time when our fears are amplified…There is often an unspoken pressure that Christmas must be perfect and harmonious, a time when we can stop and rest and have a break from all the usual stresses of life. And yet the reality is that the Christmas holidays don’t always give us the reprieve that we long for — many of us continue to carry huge burdens and difficulties.

A middle school teacher prayed these words in the aftermath of a deadly shooting at her Christian school this week: “In the depths of our spirits we know you are good, but our hearts are so confused. Our hearts waffle between being angry and afraid and being filled with memories and trauma. God, we don’t know how to manage all of that. We’re just coming to you and saying we need you.”

Since Jesus came, the storylines of human history include crucifixion, persecution, attrition, sedition, addiction, affliction, and a host of other maladies and catastrophes. We longed for a new world, but we’ve been given a world of woe.

There’s no way around the fact that incarnation means coming to a filthy and fetid world…Jesus came into a world where some babies are beloved and nurtured, while some babies are left on street corners or next to dumpsters…He came into a world where young girls and boys are sold into prostitution and refugees spend their lives waiting in squalid camps. It’s a world where white picket fences hold together falling-apart marriages.
It’s a world with disease and mental illness. A fallen creation groans with earthquakes, floods, and fires. We’ve made a mess of our lives and our families and this world. And we live with the fallout of other people’s messes too. Drugs. Death. Destruction. Sorrow, unending sorrow. Flies and vultures buzz over little ones with swollen bellies. Sludge freezes solid and becomes a playground for barefoot children. It is all too dirty, and yet he came near.
– Carrie McKean, Filthy Night, Fetid Night, CT Magazine, December 19, 2023

Are you the One?

Let’s hear Jesus in His own words: “Go tell John…”

Tell John what?

Tell him there are things happening he can’t see right now. There are miracles he’s not aware of. Right under your nose, John, all around you, my Kingdom is advancing, and droves of weary, heavy-laden folks are pressing into it.

Remind John that he leapt in his momma’s womb because of days like this.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, that the little children get it. The bent reeds get it. The smoldering wicks get it. Thank you that the least of these will not be left out.

Thank you for a world of woe that makes us heartsick and homesick for Another World. Thank you for the Incarnate Son of God who knew our grief when he wept at his friend’s tomb. Who expended necessary energy for a humiliated woman who couldn’t stop bleeding. Who tore down a blockade of bazaar kiosks to make space for weary pilgrims to pray. Who noticed a widow drop her last coins in the coffer because her God was bigger than her need. Who cast aside protocol and touched lepers.

You can hardly blame John. One doesn’t get a lot of good news down in Herod’s dungeons. Perspective is challenged when your days are numbered. It’s hard to see anything good when all you know is bad. Does Jesus even know about me down here?

I love that Jesus not only has pity for John, but praise. He’s still my guy. Nobody can hold a candle to John . He did everything that was asked of him and he finished well.

Next time you feel forsaken, consider the man down in Herod’s dungeon. Greater things were happening above ground because he played his part. Even though John’s part landed him in prison, facing execution, he would be gloriously resurrected at the Second Advent.

You are playing your part also, beloved. God’s favor rests on you because you have the Son’s Life in you. Sometimes we play a flute, sometimes we sing a dirge but we do it all because the Baby who came is the Sun of Righteousness who will return with healing in his wings. And we will go out of here leaping like calves released from the stall!

Yes, John, he is the One.

Selah, beloved.