Easter message is one of hope

Paul Berteig

Timbers Community Church

You matter!

This weekend we celebrated Good Friday. Jesus sacrificial death on the cross, and Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, and the empty tomb.

The debate and the controversy rages on about what it all means. Is it just another religious holiday?

Some would ask, what does it all mean? What does God want to say to me?

In "Whisper Test," Mary Anne Bird writes, "I grew up knowing that I was different and hated it. I was born with a cleft pallet, and when I started school my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others.

"A little girl with a misshapen lip and a crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech."

When schoolmates asked, "What happened to your lip?" I would tell them I had fallen and been cut by broken glass.

Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have had an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could ever love me.

There was however a teacher in the second grade that we all adored, Mrs. Leonard.

Annually we had a hearing test. Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn.

She whispered something, and we would have to repeat it back to her - things like, "The sky is blue," or "Do you have new shoes?" When my turn came, I waited for those words that God must have put in her mouth.

Those seven words changed my life. Mrs. Leonard whispered, " I wish you were my little girl."

Through the cross, and the resurrection, there is another great teacher who whispers to you and I today, "I wish you were my son, or my daughter."

This is clearly God's message, and the Easter story still whispers in our ears today . . .You matter.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." John 3:16