When It Becomes Easter in the Heart

Rev. A. Moerkerken, Capelle a/d Ijssel, the Netherlands

Translated from De Saambinder — April 21, 2011

Soon it will again be Easter which takes place on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. At this time the church pauses to consider the day that the Lord rose from the grave. What does Easter mean? For most, the meaning of Easter is a day to gather eggs or to go outdoors and enjoy the rebirth of nature. Of course, our people know that this is not what Easter is about. Elowever, recently I heard from an elder that many catechism students do not have the least idea of what the church of the Lord commemorates on Good Friday and on Easter. How frightening this is!

Easter is the heart of all the feast days. According to Romans 8:34 it is greater than Good Friday: “It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.” In some Eastern churches it was the custom to greet each other on Easter with the words,“The Lord is risen indeed.” We can learn something from this, but, of course, this can also easily become only a dead form.

The unspeakable far-reaching meaning of Easter is very briefly and simply summarized by our well-known Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 17. There we can read, “What doth the resurrection of Christ profit us?” The answer says, ”First, by His resurrection He has overcome death, that He might make us partakers of that righteousness which He had purchased for us by His death; secondly, we are also by His power raised up to a new life; and lastly, the resurrection of Christ is a sure pledge of our blessed resurrection.” If we read this carefully, Ursinus and Olevianus state here that the resurrection of Christ is the source of justification, of quickening, of sanctification, and of glorification.

Since Easter is of such great significance, then the question might well be asked if we have ever understood anything of the value of Easter in our own heart and life. Perhaps I can say it in this way: “Have you ever experienced Easter in your heart?” Sometimes people object to this question. “It does not have to become Easter again,” they say. ”It has been Easter; therefore, it does not have to take place again. A person does not have to experience Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, and Pentecost. In reality, that is not even possible because these events took place centuries ago, and they do not repeat themselves. The only thing that we have to do is to believe in these wonders.”

What shall we say to this? Yes, it is true, these were exceptional events, and they will not be repeated. A desire to re-experience such exceptional things is not only unnecessary, but it is also sinful. It is also true that they will not be “experienced” again as God’s children experienced them centuries ago. Everyone will understand that we will not by renewal see the Lord Jesus in an upper room eating broiled fish and pieces of a honeycomb. Neither will we see Him being taken up from a mountain near Jerusalem.

Yet, let us never forget that the fruit of these events must be applied to us personally. Let us also not forget that the Lord maintains a sacred order in the application of His dealings. The order that He upheld in the blessed events of Easter remains the same. If we may say it doctrinally, there is a holy line, a holy order, in the work of God. This order is not only objective, which means, a work the Lord has done for His children outside of them and for them in Christ—in His birth, in His life, suffering, dying, and resurrecting—but this order is also subjective, which means, a work that God does by His Spirit in His children when He applies Christ’s merited benefits to the heart. God did not pour out His Spirit before Christ arose from the dead. Neither did He grant the fruits of Pentecost before the fruits of Easter were applied.

Maybe now it has become clearer what we mean with the expression, “Easter has been experienced in the heart.” This means that the fruit of Easter has then been personally applied to the heart. Mind you, a person hearing an Easter sermon can be converted to God, but then it has not become Easter for him. It is God’s usual way to first set a person outside. If during an Easter sermon a person is quickened by God’s Spirit, he will leave the church as a lost person, but when it becomes Easter in the heart something else takes place. What is that?

Let us remain with the line given in Scripture. How was it for the disciples when it became Easter? There God’s Word is very clear; they were greatly confused, and for them salvation seemed completely impossible. Whether it concerned Mary who was weeping at the grave because they had taken away her Lord or the discouraged travelers to Emmaus who had hoped that it was Jesus who would deliver Israel, whether it was Simon Peter who, after his shameful denial of Christ, had gone out weeping bitterly, or whether it was Thomas who did not even have the courage to seek out the others, they were all confused and hopelessly lost without Christ.

Well, then, when it becomes Easter for a person, the Lord does not work in a different way today. Such persons lose their conversion, their experience, their salvation; their Savior can no longer be found. None of their previous comforts can be found; all the deliverances they experienced while they were in distress are gone; gone are all the sweet communions with the Lord in prayer, and gone are the pleasant yearnings while singing psalms. Lost, all is lost! But... they are now lost in a way different from before. Oh, yes, before they also had experienced what it was to be lost; God had revealed their unconverted state to them and shown them the breach that sin had made between God and their soul. Then it was also lost; they had to die and could not die. They were lost. God cut them off from their works, and it became impossible to ever again satisfy the demands of God’s holy justice. Then, as lost ones, they had bowed their heads under the demanding justice of the living God.

While in this “cut-offlife” of distress and dying the Resurrected One makes Himself known in the heart and speaks with power, “Peace be unto you” Then it becomes Easter, Easter in the heart.

Now there is something else at hand. Formerly, there was much that had happened in their life, and this had given

them a hope that God had begun a good work in them. They were no longer strangers of Christ, the Instructor of righteousness. Their soul felt heartily bound to Him: “Lord, to whom else shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life!” Now all this is gone; it is as if it had never happened, and now, more distressing than ever before, it is “Lost, lost!”

While in this “cut-off life” of distress and dying, the Resurrected One makes Himself known in the heart and speaks with power, “Peace be unto you.” Then it becomes Easter, Easter in the heart. It is then that He speaks to a “Mary,” to a woman who is blinded by her tears. It is then that He dries the tears of a “weeping Peter.” He gives burning hearts to a “Cleopas and his companion” as they travel on their way. In a friendly way He then speaks to a “Thomas,” suggesting that he thrust his hands in the prints of the nails.

He enlightens their darkened and blind understanding so that by His instruction they begin to understand the Scripture. Yes, now they have an experimental knowledge when they speak about Him. Light now falls upon all that was previously often not understood and unexplainable. Light falls upon His prior instruction, upon the ways of His suffering, upon His dying, and upon His resurrection. They begin to understand what they never understood before. Jesus makes Himself known as the great Applier of all that He has merited by His death. Their astounded and trembling hearts begin to understand that He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25).

Certainly, the Spirit of Pentecost is necessary to give the soul assurance; yet, without a doubt, a great change is brought about in the life of a child of God when the shadow of death (Good Friday) fades away to the dawning of Easter. What an unforgettable time it is when it becomes Easter for a son of Adam.

(The last known piece translated by the late Mr. Moerdyk)

The Mystery of Godliness

This, then, is the mystery of the cross—this is the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory—that the Son of God who, as God the Son, is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Ghost, should take our nature into union with His own divine Person and in that nature should suffer, agonize, bleed, and die; that by His sufferings, blood-shedding, and death an innumerable multitude of sinners should be redeemed from the curse of the law and the damnation of hell and be saved in Himself with an everlasting salvation. It is not my present object to enter further into the depth of this mystery as a display of the infinite wisdom, love, and grace of God, but I may briefly say that by the cross of our suffering, dying Lord, justice and mercy were thoroughly harmonized; every attribute of God blessedly glorified; the Son of His love supremely exalted; redemption’s work fully accomplished; the Church everlastingly saved; Satan entirely baffled and defeated; and an eternal revenue of praise laid up to redound to the glory of a triune Jehovah. Well, then, may we say, “Great is the mystery of godliness: God manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16).

— J.C. Philpot

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