I have a wonderful accountant, Renee Hubbard, who has been doing income taxes for Lynn and me for several years. She texted me on Wednesday morning, April 10, 2019, to say that she had almost finished our returns. She said the only thing that she was lacking was 2 items of information from my driver’s license. She wrote, “You can text the issue date on the license, and I need your expiration date.”

I reacted when she asked for my “expiration date” because at my age that term gets my attention! I thought about it and realized that she was asking for the expiration date of my license. I knew the state of Alabama wasn’t capable of putting my expiration date on my driver’s license. I, like you, have an expiration date, but only God knows it!

Recently someone was talking about my retirement from Frazer and said, “When you preached your last sermon…” I stopped him and said that I didn’t know what he was about to say but using that term “last sermon” needed to be understood. He actually went on to tell me things that I had said in my final sermon as Pastor at Frazer. That was 11 years ago! I didn’t know that he remembered anything that I had ever said!

I was speaking recently at the Iron Works Ministry men’s dinner at the old historic Pike Road School. About 200 men from various denominations meet every third Tuesday at 7:00 for a steak dinner and a speaker. I carried my friend and county commissioner, Doug Singleton, with me.

As I was speaking I referred to the fact that each of us would someday die, and said “It’s not if I die, but when I die.” Doug told that when I made the statement, “When I die…”, one man’s pacemaker malfunctioned and quit working. My words and his malfunctioning pacemaker really got his attention. They rushed him to the hospital, and much to his relief, he checked out o.k. But he did get in touch with his mortality.

Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday are about life, death, and resurrection. Jesus died on Good Friday in order that our sins could be forgiven and we could have a relationship with God through Jesus. He is the bridge over death that takes us into eternal life with the Father.

On Good Friday night they put Him in a grave, but He promised that He would rise again in 3 days. They put an extra set of guards around the grave, but they couldn’t guard the grave because Jesus was coming out! On Easter morning the women found the empty grave and began to tell everybody that Jesus was alive!

Each of us will die one day. Each of us has an expiration date. The death rate in Alabama is still 1:1. Each of us can have a resurrection date if we choose to receive God’s forgiveness for our sins and believe that He is resurrected from the dead. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who lives and believes in me…shall have eternal life.” (John 11:26)

Death is not to be feared. We can say with Paul, “Death is swallowed in victory. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57) The most important victory in life is the victory over death!

I don’t know my expiration date, but I do know my resurrection date is immediately following my expiration date!! (Tweet that!)