Easter Earthquake

 

Now when the centurion,

and they that were with him,

watching Jesus,

saw the earthquake,

and those things that were done,

they feared greatly, saying,

Truly this was the Son of God.

                                                                                    -- Matthew 27:54

 

 

            Between Haiti and Chile, earthquakes have certainly been getting people's attention lately. They have a way of doing that, for most people.

 

Then there are others. Once, my parents were vacationing in California when an earthquake hit in the middle of the night. It woke Mom and terrified her. Dad slept on. Mom cuddled up to him, saying, "But Dearest! Don't you feel that rumbling? It's an earthquake! If I am to perish, I want to be in the arms of my Beloved!"

 

            To which he groggily retorted:

 

            "I TOLD you not to have vinegar with your halibut brochette."

 

             And turned over and went back to sleep.

 

            That was Dad for you. But for most of us, when we even HEAR about an earthquake, we get scared. And I'm still amazed at what happened to the relative of a dear friend of mine, whose 23-year-old daughter was in Santiago, Chile, when the recent big one scoring 8.8 on the Richter scale devastated that country.

 

            You can read more about it on her blog starting in late February of this year, www.kellyklepfer.blogspot.com. But just imagine what would have been going through your mind if you'd awakened one fine morning to hear that a massive earthquake had just hit in the faraway Third World nation where your precious daughter had just arrived on a missions trip. And you couldn't get a hold of her.

 

 

This mom, Kelly, put it this way: "That's when my heart jumped into my throat and the claws of dread wrapped around my stomach."

 

They turned on the TV and saw scene after scene of horrendous damage. She and her husband Rob could only stare at each other, cry, and pray. Kelly beat back suffocating panic. She and her daughter were about as close as you could be. It was to the point where she wasn't sure she could go on living if her daughter had died in the disaster.

 

 

She felt overwhelmingly sick. Julianna! So far from home! Barely able to understand Spanish! Oh, God! Please, God! Please make her all right, and keep her safe, and everybody she's with.

 

Text messages and phone calls from relatives and friends starting pouring in. Is she OK? What have you heard? But nobody knew anything. The more time passed, the more likely it was that the reason Julianna hadn't checked in was that she had been hurt or killed. And here they were, thousands of miles away, unable to do a thing except wait.

 

 

 

It was almost unbearable. And then, suddenly . . .

 

. . . the peace of God, which really does pass all understanding, completely erased the fear and panic. All this mother felt was a complete and total peace, girded by the following thoughts. They flooded her mind as powerfully as any earthquake:

 

Our daughter is in the hand of God Almighty. He loves her even more than we do. We gave her to Him when she was a wee little girl. Our relationship was in great shape, with no loose ends, nothing left unsaid. Even if we never see her again, she will be with Him and she will be OK. She loves Jesus, and obediently said yes immediately when He asked her to go to Chile to serve. That was where she was supposed to be; so many things worked out so perfectly for this trip to be anything else but "of God." Whatever happens, she will be OK.

 

It was a surreal, supernatural calm that swept over her - a welcome relief and reassurance.

 

Within just a few minutes, here came a text message on her cell phone from an unfamiliar number. Her daughter had borrowed a working cell phone to send a quick message, saying simply that she was OK, she loved them, and would email them with more details when power was restored.

 

 Over the coming days, they fielded a few more texts and phone calls from Julianna's colleagues on the missions trip, reporting that, other than two people with bruises, everybody was OK and grateful to be in position immediately to start serving people in a much more immediate way than they had ever dreamed.

 

The ground continued to quake - and in fact, there were two more major quakes within days - but by the sixth day, when Julianna finally called, her parents were joyful that she sounded "completely like herself," not rocked in either faith or spirit, and doing fine.

 

She gave them goosebumps with her descriptions of miraculous survival, joyful reunions, and the hauntingly beautiful sounds of Spanish voices singing high praises to God the next Sunday in churches that might have been damaged by the quake, but not deterred from holding worship as usual.

 

In fact, they heard from one Chilean resident that Julianna, with her party attitude and sunny disposition, "was making our earthquake a blast."

 

When she arrived home to Omaha's airport, there was a mother-daughter reunion hug like no other:

 

 

And there was a four-generation photo taken that sums up the joy and relief:

 

Elizabeth Riedemann, Phyllis (Riedemann) Griffith, Kelly (Griffith) Riedemann,

and Julianna Elizabeth Klepfer (wearing a dress she got in Chile)

 

 

Kelly, the mom, is rejoicing because of the gift of peace, straight from God, at a horrible, frightening time in her life in which it was downright crazy to feel peaceful and calm. She said she has shared her faith and talked about God's power during the next few weeks more than ever before in her life. I can just imagine how much fun their Easter celebration is going to be.

 

For me, this Easter, here's the bottom line:

 

Yes, there are earthquakes in our lives: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, health-wise, employment-related, accidental, you name it.

 

Yes, they can be devastating. Frightening! Overwhelming! Horrible!

 

Yes, when Jesus died on the Cross, there was an earthquake that was so strong it literally raised the dead. The rocks tore in two, and the temple veil was torn. That must have sobered up that jeering mob something fierce.

 

But the truth is . . . God was with them in that earthquake, just as He is with us in every storm, every crisis, even in earthquakes, to the point of our death.

 

And when all the crises are over, there's a calm AFTER the storm that we shouldn't forget about. In the aftermath, there can be joy, and reunion, and peace . . . and, for believers, even after death, best of all, that Easter surprise: LIFE . . . forever!

 

Because of Easter. Because of Jesus Christ.

 

May that truth penetrate deep into your heart. May there be an Easter earthquake of love and gratitude in you, celebrating the Lamb Who was Slain for us, and rose again to guide us and love us through the many earthquakes of life.

 

May the rumblings of faith ring loud and strong in you in the coming year . . . whether or not you had vinegar with your halibut brochette.

 

HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN, INDEED! HAPPY EASTER!!! †