THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER

In his book, Resurrection: Release from Oppression, Morton Kelsey writes, “The resurrection of Jesus from the dead gives me hope.It is the only event in history in which I have seen evil and ugliness, pain and violence, destructiveness and death confronted, defeated, transcended and transmuted. The evil of this world is very real to me. I have experienced a lot of pain and destructiveness . . . The resurrection makes it worth the struggle.”

Morton Kelsey knows that he’s talking about. You see, he was born into a poor family in a Midwestern town where upon his birth he was kept warm in a shoebox by the woodstove. At birth his head was crushed resulting in hearing problems and emotional liability. In school he struggled to the point his parents considered sending him to a home for the mentally challenged. An IQ test saved him.

His childhood was filled with one sickness after another, “infections in the winter and allergies in the summer.” Growing up, Morton Kelsey says, was “a struggle to stay alive.” But, it didn’t stop there. His adult life was marked by episodes of depression. It was when he began to look at the resurrection of Jesus that life turned for the brighter. In retrospect he writes, “I found that there was no evil within me that could withstand the presence of the risen One.”

The name of Jesus does not eradicate pain and problem. No, as long as we are still in this world, pain and problem will be around—and sometimes—in our lives. But, the name of Jesus can and will give us strength to deal with pain and problem. The reason is simple and reassuring: It’s not the name of a dead man. You see, there is no grave of Jesus, there is no tombstone with His name written on it. It’s the name of a living Son of Man and Son of God.

Pastor Paul