It’s fascinating, isn’t it, that Easter is always smack in the middle of Spring?  Northerners, by then, have had more than enough of winter – snow, leafless trees, brown lawns. And suddenly, we see little shoots of green coming up through the ground! Geese come back from wherever geese go – and even though there’s no place to swim, they pair up, honk at passers-by, and plot the exact spot where ten goslings are going to repeat the pattern. Hope.
It’s this reminder that hope is the only thing that can replace the despair and darkness of loss – when our dreams crash and burn. And that’s where we need to look for the fingerprints of God. Like most of us, the disciples – devastated by loss – were pouting and grieving in safety – when they were kicked out of the room to see the fingerprints. And over time…not right away – but over time, they were able to trace the forensics of Heaven, right back to David – then to Abraham – then to Adam and Eve.
The crime scene – the whodunit – the Dateline NBC Mystery didn’t really matter. As cruel and heartless and selfish as we were – the Cross and the Open Tomb were an act of extravagant love. We did our worst…God did His best – and His finger prints are all over it! But understand this; God He won’t spoon-feed His love to us – or shove it down our throats. We have to choose hope, and then we find His love!

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Good Friday – in seasonal terms, is winter. It’s cold, dark, frozen and lifeless. No one asks, “Where’s God?” when times are happy, the fam is doing just fine, the money’s rolling in, and things are tracking up and to the right. But when it all crashes and burns, when the winter season of life hits, we ask multiple times – usually every hour, “So, where’s God?” Even Jesus asked that from the cross the day He was crucified. The disciples who were so eager to be close to Jesus — just five days before, were nowhere to be found.
Good Friday was like 9-11 at the twin towers; it was like Paris when the Nazi’s roared in; it was like the news we all got about a month ago, “It’s time to PANIC – cause there’s a PANDEMIC.” And suddenly, our money is worth less, the NBA, NHL, and all other games, movies, theaters, restaurants, and schools are shut down. Social people are told to do their socializing on social media.  That’s it! Our investments lose value; our RSP’s lose momentum – and suddenly we feel this familiar, but very uncomfortable feeling inside – called fear. And that feeling leads to other worse things – like anger, and panic and despair.
If God’s finger prints are on this (and they’re everywhere), what in the world could He be up to? Do we need to find someone to blame – and is that someone God?

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We all have happy moments in life when it seems like every thing we planned for and dreamed of is happening. When it comes to fingerprints, we look for our own! See, we’d love to take credit for the wins, the kudos, the wise planning, the natural talent that saved the day or made the day. And, of course, God’s fingerprints are always clear when things like that happen. When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and the crowd thundered His praises, the Disciples – the people who’d been with Jesus all along looked at each other, smiled, high-fived, and said, “See – we were right! And we’re getting in on the bottom floor of this new Kingdom! It was easy to have hope and feel joyful. And God does give us those kinds of days. We need them! But Fall and Winter has this way of creeping into, and erasing the final days of Summer.

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