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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (April 22, 1962)
The Easter That Changed The widow of a beloved minister faced this feast alone and in despair; then from a pile of papers HAVE YOU EVER dreaded Easter and wanted to flee it? I did that spring of 1949. Early in that year, I had been happy in my snug little world. Then came a January morn ing when that world lay in pieces at my feet. My husband Peter Marshall was dead. Acute coronary occlusion, the doctor said. A single blood clot a man's life snuffed out at 46. As spring approached, I could scarcely bear the thought of Easter. I could never have an alyzed why I resisted even the general atmos phere of gladness. Would not my small son's fun in coloring Easter eggs, the gay shop win dows, the usual triumphant church music mere ly mock my grief, throw into greater contrust my sense of loss? It was in this mood that I plunged into fren zied activity. A month earlier I had agreed to the editing of a book of Peter's sermons. So now I plunged into the task of sorting out the sermon manuscripts. I remember that I chose for the task my fa vorite spot in our Washington home the sun room. There the windows were filled with shelves of colored pressed glass which Peter and I had collected during our summers on Cape Cod. The spring sunshine filtering through the cranberry, amber, amethyst, cobalt blue, opal escent glass laid patterns of color on the floor and across the piles of papers. There were some 600 sermon manuscripts. I was trying to divide them into types: Biblical word pictures, those with a national or patri otic flavor, sermons on prayer, special-occasion ones, and so on. Suddenly beneath my hand was the last East er sermon that Peter had preached. Vividly I remembered that service. What a happy day it had been! And now? Bitterness seeped in. Shut off that train of thought, a part of my mind warned. Get on with your work. I wus about to toss the sermon onto the special-occasion pile when my eyes were drawn like a magnet to the typed words before me. Soon I was caught up in the thoughts that flowed from line to line: Jerusalem hud been anything hut im pressed with the way Christ's disciples had conducted themselves during the arrest and trial of the Nuzarenc. His followers had certainly not been courugcous. In fart, they had all either fled to save their lives or followed at a great distance. Simon I'eler wns so feurful that he had even denied huving known the INazarcne. Then, after their Master's death, the hand of disciples had stayed in hiding with the doors locked. FamilD Weekly, April 22. m! Yet after that first Easter morning, we find these same men, who had heen so timid, frightened, ineffective, now preach ing openly, with no fear of anyone. Their personal conviction rings like a hell through the pages of the New Testament, steady and strong: "That which wc huve heard with our own ears, seen with our own eyes, handled with our own hands, declare we unto you." And of what were they su sure? That Jesus Christ was alive hut no spiritual resurrection this not just the perpetua tion of a (lend man's ideas. Furthermore, they were saying these things in the same city that had sought to destroy the Christ, right at the door of the stronghold of the priests, a thousand paces from the tomb where Christ had lain. Christ's enemies would have given any thing to have refuted their claims. One thing would have done it so simply. If only they could huve produced a body. But they could not. So they tried everything they could think of to silence these fishermen, tax collectors, farmers, carpenters, shepherds imprisonment, threats, scourgings, ston ings, and death. Nothing succeeded in silencing them. Now it lakes a very great conviction to change men so drastically. Men do not per sist in a lie, or even a delusion, if every time they insist on its truth they are driv ing nails into their own coffins. A self-hypnotic illusion may sustain men for a time but not for long. In the long run, an illusion does not build character strong enough to withstand greut hard ship, great persecution. Only the bedrock truth can do that! Moreover, men who are merely fooling themselves do not become purposeful men, well-integruted men with self-sustaining qualities of leadership, as these erstwhile timid apostles became. For now they had boldness and courage, and they had power qualities that they bad not hud until after the first Easter morning. They now fell they still were in touch with Him in n different wuy, yes, but in ii more powerful way. They knew that He was with them still, even as He had prom ised that He would be. And you, loo, may have that same fellow ship with the Risen Christ. Indeed you will not believe the fact of the Resurrection for yourself until the living Christ lives in your own heart. When you have in your -thi. ..n ...M-oll, iml In r.l., Mociholli "Th. own life that sense of His nearness and His power ah, then you, too, will know! To you there may come the same wonder ful changes that have come to other men und women down through the yeurs. This is the reality that can he yours. This comradeship with the Resurrected Christ through His spirit is available now to the mun in the street, to the govern ment clerk, to the anxious mother, to the roitfused schoolboy or schoolgirl. Your life may he guided by Christ. Your ' problems may lie solved by His wisdom. Your weakness may be turned into strength by His help. Your struggles may become victories by His grace. Your sorrows may he turned into joy by His comfort. Sorrows turned into joy? It was as if Peter were speaking to me. Suddenly I realized that I had been refusing to let God turn my sor row into joy. I had been shutting Him out. I had not really believed that God cuuld give me a new life without Peter a happy life. For "weeks I had been walking unseeing through the world. Grief had blinded me, deaf ened me. So now I had to stop dreading Easter, go to meet it with an open heart. My newly opened eyes were rewarded. That year, spring burst upon the nation's capital with unusual beauty. The forsythia was more bril liant than I had ever seen it. The azaleas were punctuation marks of flaming coral and cerise. Out past the creamy whiteness of the Lincoln Memorial, the Tidal Basin was adrift in pale pink blossoms. There were fairy-feathered ave nues of pink and white (logwood. And my heart responded. I discovered in my self a new kind of peace. It was the peace that comes not from the absence of any difficulties but from knowing that happiness is possible in spite of difficulties. By Easter Sunday morning the triumphant music of the massed choirs echoed my own glad ness. In my heart I could kneel before the Risen Christ and promise Him to try to live in the present joyfully; tell Him that I was finally willing to put myself in the stream of His crea tive purposes for me though at that moment I had no idea what those purposes were. And in my mind's eye I saw again Peter's sermon lying on the floor of the sunroom with the light dancing across the words: You will not believe the fuel of the Res urrertion for yourself until the living Christ lives in your own heart. When you have in your own life that sense of His nearness and His power ah, then you, too, will know! Now I believed. Now I knew. FiMl Eo.l.,," i 1959 br M.Grow.Hill, d b, p.rmii,ioo of Ih. pbll.h... My Life from the past came her husband's words for the future fin-. ft SfaMWW.ST' lUUSTRATION BY PAUL CMIE By CATHERINE MARSHALL Author of "A Man Cnllnd Peter," "Beyond Ourselves." and "Friends with God" ' 1 j . t Family WeeJcJy April 22, 10 62 VA SV. - K av.. ' ? V ;n v . . Beneoth the shelves of colored ' v.:. , !tL g'"ss that Peter and I hod fv ':. if ki collected, my eyes fell like a magnet on one sermon and memories camo flooding back. Family Weekly, April 22, l'M2
