Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-066 (Devotional)

NOT THE FINAL RESTING GROUND

“‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.'” – Mark 16:6

Henry Alford was born in 1810 in Bloomsbury, Middlesex, England. The son of a minister, Henry wrote the following in his Bible at age 16: “I do this day in the presence of God and my own soul renew my covenant with God and solemnly determine henceforth to become his and to do his work as far as in me lies.” Henry stayed true to his pledge and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1833. After serving briefly in three parishes, he became the minister in Leicestershire for eighteen years. In 1857, he became dean of Canterbury Cathedral, a position he held until his death.

Fluent in Greek, Alford’s four volume Bible Commentary of the New Testament is still in print today. Alford also translated Homer’s Odyssey from the Greek. A gifted musician, Alford wrote the hymns “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” and “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand.” Henry Alford died on January 12, 1871. He was buried at St. Martin’s Church in Canterbury. For his epitaph on his grave marker, he wrote: “The inn of a pilgrim traveling to Jerusalem.”

The grave is not the final resting ground. Christ’s resurrection gives us hope that the grave is just an inn on our way to heaven. Have you trusted in Christ as your Savior? Today in prayer, thank Christ for His Resurrection and His promise that all who believe in Him will also have eternal life.

“Some of us stay at the cross,

Some of us wait at the tomb,

Quickened and raised with Christ

Yet lingering still in the gloom.

Some of us ‘bide at the Passover feast

With Pentecost all unknown,

The triumphs of grace in the heavenly place

That our Lord has made His own.

If the Christ who died had stopped at the cross,

His work had been incomplete.

If the Christ who was buried had stayed in the tomb,

He had only known defeat,

But the way of the cross never stops at the cross

And the way of the tomb leads on

To victorious grace in the heavenly place

Where the risen Lord has gone.”

– Annie Johnson Flint

God’s Word: “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.'” – Matt 28:5-7

DEVOTION FOR EASTER

By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2002, Devotional E-Mail To subscribe direct, go to http://www.devotions.com