ON THE WINGS OF EASTER
(quotes and poems sharing the blessing and hope of Easter)

The event of the Resurrection brought a new perspective to the vision of man.  No longer was he restricted to the little distance of an earthly existence.  The horizon melted away, as it were, and he could glimpse beyond the clouds the golden glory of eternal life.
~Esther Baldwin York~

My heart sings with the robins in the rain  . . . For I remember it is Easter morn . . . And life and love and peace are all newborn . . . And joy has triumphed over loss and pain.
~Alice Freeman Palmer~

The message of Easter cannot be written in the past tense.  It is a message for today and the days to come.  It is God's message which must re-echo through our lives.
~Frank D. Getty~

The Cross of Christ must be either the darkest spot of all in the mystery of existence or a searchlight by the aid of which we may penetrate the surrounding gloom.
~Burnett H. Streeter~

I saw God bare His soul one day
Where all the earth might see
The stark and naked heart of Him
On lonely Calvary.

There was a crimson sky of blood
And overhead a storm;
When lightning slit the clouds
And light engulfed His form.

Beyond the storm a rainbow lent
A light to every clod,
And on that cross mine eyes beheld
The naked soul of God.
~William L. Stidger~

 The cross is any place where a saving love goes out to undergird this life of ours and comes back with the hot stab of nails in its hands.
~Paul Scherer~

The Cross is the ladder to heaven.
~Thomas Draxe~

No pain, no palm;
No thorns, no throne;
No gall, no glory;
No cross, no crown.
~William Penn~
                                                                        

It was not the Cross of Jesus, but His victory over the Cross, that set the world singing and brought into the soul of man a new hope, a new joy, a new and haunting kind of goodness.
~Joseph Fort Newton~

See there! God's signpost, standing at the ways
Which every man of his free will must go--
Up the steep hill, or down the winding ways,
One or the other, every man must go.

He forces no man, each must choose his way,
And as he chooses, so the end will be;
One went in front to point the Perfect Way,
Who follows fears not where the end will be.
~John Oxenham~

The key to the world is in the form of a cross, but it cannot do anything until someone's hand lifts it and fits it into the keyhole.
~Howard C. Scharfe~

Whatever else Thou sendest me, oh, send this---
Not ecstasy of love or lover's kiss,
But strength to know the joy of sacrifice,
To see life deeply as with opened eyes!
Oh, grant me this, dear God,
Through tears or loss---
To know the joyous secret
Of thy Cross!
~Ralph Spaulding Cushman~

Easter not only happened; it happens.  It is not only a past event to be celebrated with new hats and hallelujahs; it is an eternally present fact to be appropriated by faith and obedience.
~Mary E. McCullough~
                                       

In the Easter tiding many notes mangle:  notes which strike the deepest chords in our human make-up, and answer to our highest aspirations and direst needs.

There is ineffable tenderness in the greeting of the risen Lord to the weeping woman who loved Him devotedly.

There is manly forthrightness in His restoration of the conscience-stricken Peter.

There is stimulating reasoning with the disconsolate two on the road to Emmaus.

There is irrefutable evidence for the wondering group in the upper room

There is kindly yet stern rebuke for the willful doubts of Thomas.

There is the stirring challenge for all His followers to proclaim the glad tidings unto the ends of the earth.
~Herbert F. Stevenson~


Easter is no time for argument.
Lilies don't argue; they bloom.
Springtime doesn't argue; it comes.
Music doesn't argue; it sings.
Beauty doesn't argue; it beckons and points.
Love doesn't argue; it outlives our griefs.
~Frederick B. Speakman~

Jesus Christ is actually more alive today than He was before His death.  He influences more people.  He is better understood, He is more inspiring and comforting.  It is pathetic to hear people repining that they did not live to know Him in His physical lifetime, for it only means that they do not know that they have better opportunities to be acquainted with His whole life, and His purposes, and their significance for the world, than the most intimate of His disciples could possibly have had.
~Edward Scribner Ames~

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right;
Faith and Hope triumphant say,
Christ will rise on Easter Day.
~Phillips Brooks~

And He departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him.  For He departed, and behold, He is here.
~St. Augustine~

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