“This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sorrow!” LSB 482 (worth memorizing)
Eastertide, the days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost, is a time when we concentrate on the vast significance and inexhaustible blessings of our redemption accomplished by Jesus, climaxing in His resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit takes what is His and declares it to us!
How many Eastertides have you celebrated in your life so far? Have you noticed that each year the tide comes in a little higher? The resurrection of Jesus and all the blessings that flow from it continue to raise us up from dying to living.
Think about how Jesus restored the lives of people who were afraid or hungry or sick or dead, and then how He bore the sins of the world and died under the law. But He endured the cross and shame for the joy set before Him, and that joy was our redemption. Romans 8:28 says that God makes all things work together for good. That means we can see how God is working good, especially when things seem hardest. That is what Joseph came to realize regarding his brothers: “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). That is what Job realized: “Now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than the first” (Job 42:12). And James comments, “You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11).
God’s revelation to us and the life of Jesus teach us how things really are working for good, especially when we so automatically assume they are not. I’ll be writing more about seeing what is positive in these weeks of Eastertide.