Traveling To Happily Ever After

Robin and I still have one child living at home, a daughter who is 10 years-old.  Being ten, and having a very active imagination, she delights in creating adventure as she plays.  This happens when she plays alone and when she plays with friends.  She is at an age where she still will play dress-up games, grabbing a very well-worn princess dress from an old toy chest and letting her imagination run wild.  The stereotypical movie princess ends up living happily ever after. Our daughter's adventures don’t seem quite that goal-directed, but she certainly seems to be having a lot of fun along the way.

This morning I preached a funeral, using Isaiah 35:10 as my text.   When I happened across that passage earlier in the week I thought it might fit into my Easter sermon.  That didn’t happen, but when the funeral came up it turned out to be a very appropriate piece of scripture for the occasion.  Isaiah says,

"And the ransomed of the Lord

shall return and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain gladness and joy,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

Think through those words through the lens of Jesus.  By faith in what has been accomplished in the death-and-resurrection of Jesus, believers in Him are "the ransomed of the Lord," and so we are traveling on the way, right now, to Zion, the place where the Lord dwells.

And the promise of God is that along the way we will enjoy, we will delight, in His presence, or as Isaiah says, we "shall obtain gladness and joy," on the one hand, while on the other "sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

The adventures of movie princesses are fine, to a point, but Isaiah shows God's people traveling to what is truly happily ever after.  A journey that only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus.

This Easter may you know Christ Jesus, as your Savior and your Lord. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.