He Has Risen!

“And the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going before you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.’” Matthew 28:5-7

Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in mid-1950's her father, British minister W.E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. “Let me stay in the struggle, Lord,” he pleaded. “I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead.” He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. I’m only in the kindergarten of suffering, he told people who pitied him.

Gradually Sangster’s legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still shakily hold a pen. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it he said, “it is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice with which to shout, ‘He is risen!’ but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”

Despite the physical struggle he endured, Rev. Sangster’s confidence and hope and joy was in the resurrection of Jesus Christ - a resurrection that would be his as well, a resurrection that would give him a new body which will not be corrupted by muscular atrophy or any other disease, a resurrection unto anew and glorious home in heaven!

Today - celebrate Easter for all it means to you...and for what it means to you for eternity!