Category: Uncategorized

The black night crushed down on me, a weight greater than any I’d ever borne. My soul felt devoid of all light.

Widow. I was a widow. A few hours ago, my beloved husband Ron died, leaving a hole in my heart I feared would never be filled. The tears streamed down my face. I reached across my bed for Ron’s pillow, needing the comfort of his familiar scent as I waited for the first pink threads of morning.

As I sat in the darkness, I realized I wasn’t the first to grieve a loss that shattered the world. The disciples, too, knew the weight of silence and sorrow. That silent Saturday must have stretched endlessly for them. The Man they had believed in, hoped in, and planned their futures around had died. Those few who had stayed on the hill of Golgotha had seen His battered body lowered to the ground, limp and lifeless. They had believed in Jesus’ earthly kingdom. They did not yet understand that Jesus of Nazareth had come not to lift their physical burdens but the heavier weight of sin on their souls.

Now what? I asked God the night Ron died. Now what?
The disciples surely asked each other the same thing.

“It is finished,” He had said. Did His followers understand the magnitude of what He had uttered?

The Greek word translated as “It is finished” is tetelestai, a term used in the ancient world to indicate that a debt had been paid in full. Jesus wasn’t just announcing His death—He was declaring our redemption. He spoke not of defeat, but of fulfillment. Not of loss, but of love.

Paid in full.

It was a dark night.

But morning came. I got up and wiped my tears, moving into my first day as a widow.

The women approached the tomb, ready to offer one final act of love for their Lord.

And everything changed.

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her (John 20:18).

Oh, what joy there must have been at the news! Immediately, Peter and John ran to the tomb and found it just as Mary had said: empty.

The resurrection isn’t just about Christ; it is also about us. We are invited to live each day in the transforming power of God—new life, new hope, and new purpose.

Making us Resurrection People.

John Wesley spoke of the resurrection not only as a hope for the future, but as a call to transformation in the present. He said, “By the resurrection of Christ, God hath given us a proof of his power to raise our souls from the death of sin, to walk in the newness of life.”

As Resurrection People, we are continually being shaped, reshaped, and made more like Christ through the Holy Spirit.

It means we let go of bitterness and embrace forgiveness.
It means we choose compassion over convenience.
It means we live with joy, even in hard times, because we know the story did not end at the cross; it burst forth from the empty tomb.

Our own tombs are also empty. My husband’s earthly body might lie in a grave at Lawncroft Cemetery, where the carillon bells he so loved ring hymns into the air, but his soul has been transformed. No longer in pain from the many years of physical and mental illness, he now rejoices at the feet of his Lord and Savior.

As we enter the season of Eastertide—the 50 days leading us to Pentecost and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit—we’re given space to practice resurrection. To discover what new life in Christ means on a personal level. To move forward in a life shaped by the hope of the risen Lord.

As Resurrection People, we are not perfect but transformed.
Not finished but made new.

So this Eastertide, let’s not just celebrate the resurrection.

Let’s live it.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Do you have a story to share about your own walk with Jesus? I’d be happy to help you write it for the church blog! You can follow me for more stories about faith, hope, and widowhood at lindaca1.substack.com .

REFLECTIONS ON THE SUNDAY SERMON

Linda Waltersdorf Cobourn, EdD

 April 6, 2025

Mark Peters, Speaker

FOXES AND HENS

Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

Mark 15:1

            “Count off by twos,” Mr. Matthews instructed as we lined up at the door of my second-grade classroom. “Today we’re playing Foxes and Hens.”

Most of my classmates were delighted to be able to run outside on a warm day in April, but I groaned. Running kicked up my asthma and made breathing difficult, and the sun high in the sky hurt my eyes and reflected off my new eyeglasses in strange ways. I was never very good at running games; I was destined to always be a hen, never a fox who was stronger and had more power. The fox could capture the hen, but the hen could only run around clucking. It didn’t seem at all fair to the hen!

As an adult, however, I have had to reconsider the role of the hen. After all, Jesus Christ compares Himself to a mother hen. Luke 13:34 says this:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

Jesus clearly laments for Jerusalem. The Book of Luke mentions Jerusalem 90 times, yet the city had continued to refuse to accept Jesus as Messiah. In verse 31 (Luke 13:31), some of the Pharisees had warned Jesus to leave the area because “Herod wants to kill you.” But Jesus is not intimidated by Herod. He tells the Pharisees “ ‘Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal” (Luke 13:32). The coming death of the Savior will not be part of Herod’s plan, but about the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus, who longed to gather the people of Jerusalem as a mother hen gathers her chicks, did not fight, as a fox would, against His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. He could easily have called down angels to save Him, but He allowed Himself to be led away (Matthew 26:56) as the lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7).

I imagine, as Mark described to us on Sunday, the image of the hen, wings spread wide, breast exposed, making no move to shield herself as she gathers her chicks. Her wings provide shade from the sun and warmth from the cold and protection from predators.

And what if the chicks refuse to come? She will continue to wait for them, patient and vulnerable, leaving herself open to harm.

It is an image to hold onto as we complete the days before Easter Sunday. The image of the mother hen, mourning for the children that will not come, leads me to think of three things:

1. We are called to radical vulnerability. In the face of danger, Jesus gives us His own body. He offers Himself as our refuge. Can we do the same for others?
2. We are called to lamentation, for those lost, for missed opportunities, for Israel.

We may not be able to save them, but we can mourn for them and pray for them.

3. We are called to return to Him. What does He ask of us? What role are we to play in the Kingdom of God? Can we take the risk to love sacrificially, as He does?

The people of Jerusalem were not willing to come to Jesus.  Are you willing to come?

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR.

Everyone has a “God story” to tell! Please talk to me about sharing yours. If you’ve enjoyed reading this and would like to read more about my faith walk, please join my free blog at: lindaca1.substack.com

And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.” ( John 4:46)

I leaned my head against the wall for a moment, pausing to try and infuse some strength into my weary body. The walk from the parking lot, through the medical pavilions, and down the long hallway to the main hospital seemed to get longer every day. There were times when I ran down the hallway at top speed, anxious to get to the trauma ward or the surgical unit, afraid it would be my last chance to see my husband. There were other days, like today, when I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I felt exhausted, convinced I could easily melt into a puddle of tiredness onto the beige rug of the hallway. Desperately, I needed rest.

But after years of caring for a chronically ill husband, rest was not likely to happen.

The nobleman in John 4:46 would have known what I was talking about. While we are not told how long his son was ill, we can surmise it was not a sudden illness. Can you see him pacing the floor of his son’s room, sitting by his bed and holding the hand of his child? Can you imagine him calling upon all manner of healers and doctors to try and bring relief to his boy? I can; for years, we left no stone unturned to try and find a cure for Ron. We traveled up and down the East Coast, seeking answers to his chronic pain. I can empathize with this father, then, who likely had connections as a nobleman, perhaps was even in the employ of Herod.

Maybe he’d been given false hope. Maybe along the way a charlatan or two had promised a cure. In our twenty- year battle, we encountered more than a few of them as well.

But then the nobleman, this worried father, heard that Jesus was nearby, just 20 miles away in Cana. Had he heard of the first miracle Jesus had done at the wedding, turning water into wine? It is clear he knew something of Jesus; he addresses him as “sir”, which in the Greek is kyrie, meaning “lord.” It seems from what is told in the book of John that he had traveled alone; his servants later met him on the road. What is also clear is that he had faith that Jesus could heal his son. When Jesus said, “Go thy way, thy son liveth,” (John 4: 50) he did not question it. He knew it to be true.

Even as Ron suffered for so many years with so many maladies, I never stopped believing in God’s ability to heal him. I did sometimes wonder why He did not. It was often hard to reconcile that to a Father I believed loved Ron.

To me, the most important part of the story of the nobleman is not the healing of his son; we have many examples of Jesus’ ability to heal. What strikes me is this: This worried and heartsick father, probably weary from sleepless nights keeping vigil at his son’s bed, did not immediately run home. No. He believed what Jesus said. He believed his son was healed. I can hear across the years the sigh of relief he breathed. I, who have experienced the exhaustion that comes with caregiving, can also feel the weight of his body sag as his shoulders round, his head bows, and now bereft of the adrenaline that kept him moving forward, can now rest. That night may have been the first good night’s sleep he had in a long, long time.

And it happened because he took Jesus at His word, never doubting his son was now well.

I, too, take Jesus at His word. So many years of caring for an ill husband had left me depleted. During the years of caring for Ron, a restful night’s sleep was only a dream. According to Crossroads Hospice, “caregivers must sacrifice a great deal from their personal and professional lives.” I was among the 60% that still worked full-time (and often had two part time jobs as well). I can concur with the 55% of caregivers who say it is an overwhelming way to live. I need time to recover in body, mind, and soul.

God did not heal Ron. But God did take Ron home to heaven to live with Him. And it is now, as I approach the one year anniversary of his home going, that I am finding rest.

How can you take Jesus at His word? What promise can you claim today?