He is risen; what are you going to do about it?

He is risen. Yes, he is risen indeed!

What are we going to do about it now?

The best Easter sermon I ever heard was entitled “What are We Going To Do About it Now.”

I say I heard it because I wasn’t in the audience when it was preached. Instead I downloaded it off a podcast online. I desperately wish I had been there in person but I listen to it pretty often because it was preached by someone I had been very close to but hadn’t talked to in a long time.

That sermon was the first sermon my preacher friend had delivered since his wife had died suddenly. I found out pretty much too late to get there for the funeral and I had my plate full at home with my own wife’s health at the time.

Some time later I was thinking about Glenn and found a place to download several of his sermons and the first one I played brought me to my knees when I realized it was his first Sunday back in the pulpit.

He stated the sermon in John 20 where the disciples were discovering that the stone had been rolled away from Jesus’ tomb. Mary ran to tell others and they were at first terrified and uncomprehending that Jesus’ body was gone. They moved to dejection and probably even depression.

They didn’t know what to do. They had followed him for three years and now he seemed to be gone.

The sermon talked about how the disciples had to prove to themselves it was really Jesus when he appeared to them after they locked themselves in the Upper Room. He said they knew he was the son of God and they all believed he was still alive but some had to touch the scars much like Glenn needed to have the casket open during his wife’s funeral.

He knew his wife’s faith was strong and he was confident that she was saved, but still the reminder of her mortal life was necessary for him to process it all. The physical separation was final.

He ended the sermon by first playing the song “God On the Mountain,” which talks about how easy things are on the mountaintop when things are going well. But the song reminds us that the God on the mountain is the same God in the valley when times are tough and we don’t know what we’re going to do now.

God put the perfect plan in play when he sent his Son to Earth in flesh and blood to suffer a cruel and humiliating death on the cross then to be resurrected from the grave to defeat evil and death.

I wish I had been there to see my friend Glenn preach that sermon. I also wish I had been there the morning they discovered Jesus had risen from death.

The tomb is empty this morning. What are you going to do about it in your life?

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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