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