Then Came The Morning Series

Louis Evans told of the soldier who was wounded on the battlefield at night. He could not

move or speak, but he could see the lanterns of the medics as they made their way from body

to body. Finally a lantern was shining down on him, and after they examined his wounds one

of them said, "I believe that if he makes it to sunrise, he will live." This gave the soldier a

goal to reach, and a hope to cling to, so he lay there looking up into the stars longing for the

dawn. "If I make it to sunrise I will live," he kept saying to himself, and so he filled his mind

with thoughts of his wife and children, and all the reasons he had to live. Then came the

morning and a feeling of victory, for he knew he would see his family again.

Hope is a powerful tool in helping people get through the night of their trials to the dawn

of a new day, and a new life. Most of you have probably had some experience of waiting for

the dawn. The one that stands out in my mind was in my first year of college. I friend of mine

hit me in the front teeth on the basketball court. I developed an abscess that began to hurt

terribly in the night. I lived in the dorm, and I can remember it being the longest night of my

life. I roamed the hall and pleaded for the sun to rise. I was in such pain that I had no other

goal in life but to see the sunrise and be able to get some help. Nothing is so comforting as the

coming of the dawn when you are suffering in the night. Thank God for the morning that

enables you to endure the night.

Easter is that morning of history than gives man the courage and the hope to endure any

night, even the night of death when the light of life is snuffed out and darkness seems to have

won the war. God has always been a morning person, and it fits all we know of God that he

would raise his Son up from the grave on a Sunday Morning. It was the greatest single

victorious event ever to happen on this planet, and it happened in the morning. You don't

hear of Easter sunset services, but Easter sunrise services, for it was in the early morning

that the Son of God rose to never set again.

That first Easter morning was the beginning of a day of Sonshine that would never end in

the darkness of night, for Jesus turned on a light that all the powers of hell could never put

out or even dim. Easter never ends, for on that morning of all mornings Jesus conquered

death and darkness and brought life and immortality to light. There is just something about

the morning that God loves. He dwells in perpetual light and he is light, and in Him is no

darkness at all, yet He loves the dawning of the new day, and He made Easter morning the

time of his total victory over the kingdom of darkness. Easter was just the fulfillment of what

we see all through the Bible. God never slumbers or sleeps, but is ever alert to give songs in

the night to his needy children. But from the very start of creation God has been most active

in the morning. He does his best work in the morning. That is when he created the world.

I don't know if you have ever noticed before, but God's workday in creation always began

in the morning. After each day he said there was evening and morning. For 6 days God

began each morning with a whole new project. We know it was morning because God told

Job it was. He asked Job in Job 38, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?"

And after a few more such questions he added, "While the morning stars sang together and

all the angels shouted for joy. God started all his masterpieces in the morning. On the 7th

morning God rested and did no work, and the 7th day became the Sabbath day of rest. It was

still the sacred day of worship and rest when Jesus lay in the tomb. But Matthew now begins

the last chapter of his Gospel with God going back to work on Sunday morning. The Sabbath

was over and it was a dawning of a new week, and God decides it is time for a new morning

creation that will begin a whole new history on this planet.

God could have raised his Son on the Sabbath, but he was starting fresh with a whole new