Easter 2010 - Stories of Resurrection

Josh Broward
April 4, 2010

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

SoYoung’s Story
Gu SoYoung was my friend and neighbor. She was Emma’s piano teacher. She was a member of our church’s Advisory Council. She went with us to Tanzania in 2008. She was beautiful, and she loved beauty. She was an outstanding piano player, and she taught herself how to play the violin at the age of 30. She loved new foods and new experiences. She was full of joy and life. Her smile was always contagious.
In the last months of 2008, SoYoung began having stomach aches and digestive problems. In January of 2009, she was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. There was nothing the doctors could do. Her health declined quickly over the next few months.
SoYoung spent the last month or so in a hospice out in the countryside on the east side of Cheonan. As we drove out to visit her, we could see the trees and fields and flowers slowly emerging with the new life of spring, and yet, each day, we also watched the life fade out of our dear friend.
SoYoung died on the morning of April 4 at about 6 a.m. Sarah and I quickly went out to the hospice to join the family. We passed the word to the church, and we held a quiet memorial service at the funeral home on Sunday night.
That was a difficult and extremely painful season for her family and for many in our church. Many of us still miss SoYoung deeply.
This winter has been one of the longest winters I can remember. Many people have said that it feels like winter will never end. The gray skies, cold weather, and snow have seemed to last forever. Just when we think they are gone, they come back again.
Our world is in a long winter of death. Death was never part of God’s plan, but it is here, and we can’t stop it for now. Sometimes, the gray skies and pains of death seem like they will last forever. Just when we think they are gone, they come back again. Someone else dies. We lose another loved one. There is another senseless killing or disease. This long winter of death seems like it will go on forever. It seems like we will never escape all of this dying and waiting for more dying.
Last week, it was still cold. I was wearing my winter coat, and I had my hands shoved into my pockets because they felt like ice. I was walking past the Owens Building, and I saw something that encouraged my heart.
I saw the first buds of spring. They weren’t much, but they were there. They were the magnolia blossoms. They were these gray, green, fuzzy blossoms on the ends of bare tree branches. Everywhere around me looked cold and dead, but there were these magnolia buds. There was unmistakable proof that spring is in fact coming. Spring is coming! Winter will not last forever. The warm weather will come. The life will return. The trees will burst into flowers. The grass will turn green. The bushes will fill with leaves. Azaleas will set our campus ablaze with bright starbursts of pink and orange and red. Life is coming back!
Our world is in a long winter of death. Sometimes it feels like our world is cold and dying. Jesus is like the first bud of spring. Jesus is the first sign of new life to break through our winter. Jesus is “the first fruits of the resurrection.” Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead.” Jesus has broken through the cold chains of death. He has burst into our world of wintery death with the spring of new life.
We believe in the resurrection of the dead. SoYoung will be raised again on the last day, and all who die in Christ will be raised with Christ. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and all who live in him will always live even though they die. We may not feel it now. We may still feel cold and sad, but we can look at Jesus and see unmistakable evidence that spring is coming. Life is coming. Winter will not last forever. The Spring of eternal life is breaking through to our world. Someday, our world will be blooming with great flowers of life all over the place. Life is coming, and death can’t stop it!


Luke 23:44-46, 55-56; 24:1-9

Eta’s Story: A Story of Hope (Matt)

Have you ever been at a place in your life where you think everything is lost when you are completely hopeless? When you cannot even dare to hope that things will get better. This is how the disciples felt when Jesus died. They were heartbroken and scared.

And this is how Eta felt. She is an African student here at Korea Nazarene University; in the Owens International College. She had no money to keep going to school, and no hope. Then, KNU remembered that our church gives a scholarship for the university, and they gave our scholarship to her. It helped her a great deal. She was able to stay in school. Here is the letter she wrote us:

A LETTER OF THANKS AND APPRECIATION: I wish to say thank you for your tremendous contribution to my studies this semester. You gave me hope when all hope was lost. To say I am happy will be an understatement. Rather, I am overwhelmed with joy. May the Lord Almighty continue to bless you and all your endeavors. You have impacted my life in a very special way. Once again, thank you. Yours sincerely, Eta
When we can give hope, then our church can follow in Jesus’ footsteps. We get to give hope to those who have no hope - just like Jesus gave us the ultimate hope when he arose from the dead.


Isaiah 65:17-25

Country X Story (For security reasons, we cannot publish the name of this country.)

Sometimes terrible things happen. No matter where you live, sometimes life goes wrong. Sometimes, the people you love the most die. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do about it. It happens to us. It happens to people in every culture in every nation on earth.
For most of us, when the terrible things happen, we have a circle of support to help us through that dark time. We can turn to our family and friends for emotional or financial support. For most of us, when the terrible things happen, we have a reserve of savings we can rely on to keep us going while we grieve. For most of us, we have enough skills and training to survive in the market place - even if we were to suddenly find ourselves completely alone.
However, this is not the case for many, many women and children in Country X. When terrible things happen there, terrible follows terrible. If a husband dies, his wife is socially condemned. In addition to dealing with the grief of the loss of her closest companion, her lover, and her provider, she must also cope with her society’s belief that she is somehow guilty for her husband’s death. She is considered cursed or bad luck. Often, her own family rejects her - out of fear that she will bring bad luck to their own homes.
Most widows have no financial savings. Whatever resources the husband owned are passed on to the husband’s family. This leaves the widow with nothing. To make matters even worse, most widows have no marketable skills and no training. Most are unable to find a job that provides enough resources to care for themselves and their children.
A widow in Country X is often faced with a choice between three difficult options:

• The “best” option is to become a household servant. This provides the most stability. At least she will eat. However, she becomes little better than a slave, and she can be subject to beatings and sexual abuse.
• The “independent” option is to roam the streets as a beggar. She is homeless and dirty and without protection, but she’s free. However, she may go days or weeks without eating.
• After trying the independent option for some time, and growing tired of an empty stomach, she may decide to leverage her last remaining resource - her body. Many widows decide that the would rather be prostitutes than starve.

Unfortunately, all three of these options usually mean that the widow is completely unable to care for her children. Children are not usually welcome in a household servant role or in a brothel. As a beggar, she may lose her children to the streets or release them to fend for themselves.
Children who have lost their fathers face circumstances of unimaginable difficulty. They have lost their provider and protector. They have lost their anchor in the world and their shelter from the rain and pain of life. They are usually thrust into the world helpless and alone. All opportunities for education are permanently lost. Regular food and safe places to sleep quickly become distant memories. Many orphans face similar choices as widows. If they are “lucky,” they can become household servants. If they cherish their freedom, they can gamble their lives on the streets as beggars or petty thieves. If they are unlucky, they maybe sold or stolen as sex slaves or child laborers. All of these options leave them helpless and hopeless.
To be a widow or an orphan in Country X is to have your life stolen by death. It is to have your future stolen by your unfortunate past. To be a widow or orphan in Country X is to have life stripped away day after day after day - leaving you a decomposing human being who still breathes and talks. To become a widow or orphan in Country X is to die years before you go to your grave.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Death for the father doesn’t have to mean death for the whole family. Christians in Country X are beginning to change their culture, little by little, one widow, one orphan, one village at a time.
Nazarene Compassionate Ministries is building a village for widows and orphans near the city of Y in northwest Country X. There will be a community center, for education for the kids and the widows. There will be a central rice paddy that will be farmed by Nazarene laymen. There will be 50 houses around the village, and each house will hold 2 widows and 5-7 orphans in a new blended family. Each house will have its own vegetable garden, and each widow will learn skills to earn enough income to support their new families. Each of the children will be able to go to school and eat regular meals.
The land for this village is already purchased, and the building permits are currently being secured. Over the next year, the Nazarene leaders there will build the community center and the first houses. This village will give new life to about 150 orphans. They won’t have to choose between bad and worse. Instead, they will be protected and empowered to choose between good and better.
Our church has formed a long term partnership with this village. We hope our partnership will be marked by:

• mutual giving, sharing, and learning
• transparency
• commitment
• empowerment
• holism (care for body, mind, and soul)
• regular communication
• friendship
• prayer.

We expect the core components of our partnership to include:

• construction projects
• child sponsorship
• economic empowerment projects
• prayer partnership
• outreach to people from Country X living in Cheonan.

Over time, we may also be able to add:

• local education projects
• scholarships for students from Country X to study at KNU
• clean water projects
• micro-financing for small business development
• infrastructure development for the village (such as adding internet access).

This past winter was unusually cold, and many people in Country X died from the cold weather.
Our church gave 1,000,000 won to pay for blankets for all of the widows and orphans who will live in our village. Thanks to your generous giving, they were able to stay warm at night. We now have pictures from the day when they gave our blankets to the widows and orphans who are waiting to live in our village.
Because of our church’s partnership with Nazarenes in Country X, this woman will not have to become a beggar. Instead, she can tend a vegetable garden and help care for some orphans who have lost their mothers and fathers.
Because of your generous giving, this girl will not be forced into prostitution. Because you are giving, she will not be robbed of her innocence for the price of a cup of coffee. Because you are giving, she will laugh and play and go to school and eat when she is hungry.
Because of your generous giving, this woman will not become a household slave. Because of your giving, she will learn how to weave the cloth for that beautiful sari she is wearing. She will sell her products in the city market and earn enough money to support her children and the other children who are entrusted to her blended household.
...
Because of your generous giving, and because our brothers and sisters in Country X are giving their lives to care for the poor in their midst, these women and children are given new life. A new spring of beautiful flowers is budding in the midst of their long and dark winter of death. Because you are giving, Jesus is becoming real to them.

God raised Jesus from the dead, and God is still raising people from the dead today. God is giving new life to people who have lost all hope. God is raising us from the death of consumerism and isolation. God is using us to raise others from the death of hopelessness, starvation, and abuse. Christ is risen! And Christ is still giving new life in us and through us!