firstIMPRESSIONS
from Senior Pastor Timothy Satryan

A father knelt down beside his little boy’s bed. It was time for prayers, hugs and kisses, and tucking in. The little boy began the childhood prayer he had repeated so many times before: Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake Pray the Lord, my soul to take.

This time the words got mixed up. Unwittingly, the child spoke words of the greatest wisdom. He prayed, “If I should wake before I die.” Embarrassed, he stopped. “Oh Daddy, I got all mixed up.” Wisely, his dad responded tenderly, “Not at all, Son, that’s the first time the prayer was properly prayed. My deepest longing for you is that you may wake up before you die.” The child drifted to sleep, but the father turned the prophetic words about in his mind.

“If I should wake before I die. That’s it!” he exclaimed. “That’s the promise and hope of Easter. This is the time to come alive and live forever!

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 7.14. Live for God, on purpose, alive forevermore, because Christ has risen from the dead for me and for you!

This is Resurrection Sunday, and together we celebrate the day that the blood of Jesus washed away our sin and the payment for sin was settled and done. The great news and hope for those of us who believe in His resurrection and Him to forgive us of our sins, is that one day we will see Him in heaven, then and there, face to face.

Our Worship Choir will minister in this powerful Easter musical as a part of this Sunday’s tremendous time of worship. From the opening notes of the orchestra to the closing song of the choir, it is our hope that lives are changed because of the magnificent redemption story of God’s love.

Don’t miss this great time to proclaim that Christ is risen from the dead! Come ready to celebrate!

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The day is over, you are driving home. You tune in your radio. You hear a little blurb about a little village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before. It’s not influenza, but three or four fellows are dead, and it’s kind of interesting. They’re sending some doctors over there to investigate it.

You don’t think much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church, you hear another radio spot. Only they say it’s not three villagers, it’s 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India, and it’s on TV that night. CNN runs a little blurb; people are heading there from the disease center in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been seen before.

By Monday morning when you get up, it’s the lead story. For it’s not just India; it’s Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it, you’re hearing this story everywhere and they have coined it now as “the mystery flu”. The President has made some comment that he and everyone are praying and hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone is wondering, “How are we going to contain it?” That’s when the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this thing has been seen.

That night you are watching a little bit of CNN before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest when a weeping woman is translated from a French news program into English: “There’s a man lying in a hospital in Paris dying of the mystery flu."It has come to Europe. Panic strikes. As best they can tell, once you get it, you have it for a week and you don’t know it. Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms. Then you die. Britain closes its borders, but it’s too late. South Hampton, Liverpool, North Hampton, and it’s Tuesday morning when the President of the United States makes the following announcement:

“Due to a national security risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I’m sorry. They cannot come back until we find a cure for this thing.” Within four days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear. People are selling little masks for your face. People are talking about what if it comes to this country, and preachers on Tuesday are saying, “It’s the scourge of God. “It’s Wednesday night and you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot and says, “Turn on a radio, turn on a radio.” While the church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made,” Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery flu.” Within hours it seems, this thing just sweeps across the country.

People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working. California, Oregon, Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts. It’s as though it’s just sweeping in from the borders. Then, all of a sudden the news comes out. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. It’s going to take the blood of somebody who hasn’t been infected, and so, sure enough, all through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing: “Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood type taken. That’s all we ask of you. When you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.” Sure enough, when you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there is a long line, and they’ve got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it.

Your wife and your kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say, “Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home.” You stand around scared with your neighbors, wondering what in the world is going on, and that this is the end of the world. Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He’s yelling a name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your son tugs on your jacket and says, “Daddy, that’s me.” Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. “Wait a minute, hold it!” And they say, “It’s okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure. We want to make sure he doesn’t have the disease. We think he has got the right type.”

Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another some are even laughing. It’s the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor walks up to you and says, “Thank you, sir. Your son’s blood type is perfect. It’s clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine.” As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying.

But then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, “May we see you for a moment? We didn’t realize that the donor would be a minor and we need... we need you to sign a consent form.” You begin to sign and then you see that the number of pints of blood to be taken is empty. “H-h-h-how many pints?” And that is when the old doctor’s smile fades and he says, “We had no idea it would be a little child. We weren’t prepared. We need it all!” “But but...” “You don’t understand. We are talking about the world here. Please sign. We – we need it all – we need it all!” “But can’t you give him a transfusion?” “If we had clean blood we would. Can you sign? Would you sign?” In numb silence you do. Then they say, “Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?”

Can you walk back? Can you walk back to that room where he sits on a table saying, “Daddy? Mommy? What’s going on?” Can you take his hands and say, “Son, your mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything happen to you that didn’t just have to be.

Do you understand that?” And when that old doctor comes back in and says, “I’m sorry, we’ve – we’ve got to get started. People all over the world are dying.” Can you leave? Can you walk out while he is saying, “Dad? Mom? Dad? Why – why have you forsaken me?”

And then next week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son, and some folks sleep through it, and some folks don’t even come because they go to the lake, and some folks come with a pretentious smile and just pretend to care. Would you want to jump up and say, “MY SON DIED! DON’t YOU CARE?”

Is that what God is saying? “MY SON DIED. DON’t YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I CARE?”

“Father, seeing it from your eyes breaks our hearts. Maybe now we begin to comprehend the great love you have for us. Amen.”

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Still He Walked

He could hear the crowds screaming “crucify” “crucify”...
He could hear the hatred in their voices,
These were his chosen people.
He loved them,
And they were going to crucify him.
He was beaten, bleeding and weakened... his heart was broken,
But still He walked.
He could see the crowd as he came from the palace.
He knew each of the faces so well.
He had created them.
He knew every smile, laugh, and shed tear,
But now they were contorted with rage and anger...his heart broke,
But still He walked.
Was he scared?
You and I would have been
So his humanness would have mandated that he was. He felt alone.
His disciples had left, denied, and even betrayed him.
He searched the crowd for a loving face and he saw very few.
Then he turned his eyes to the only one that mattered
And he knew that he would never be alone.
He looked back at the crowd, at the people who were spitting
At him, throwing rocks at him and mocking him and he knew
That because of him, they would never be alone.
So for them, He walked.
The sounds of the hammer striking the spikes echoed through
The crowd. The sounds of his cries echoed even louder,
The cheers of the crowd, as his hands and feet
Were nailed to the cross, intensified with each blow.
Loudest of all was the still small voice inside his
Heart that whispered “I am with you, my son",
And God’s heart broke.
He had let his son walk.
Jesus could have asked God to end his suffering,
But instead he asked God to forgive.
Not to forgive him, but to forgive the ones who were persecuting him.
As he hung on that cross, dying an unimaginable death,
He looked out and saw, not only the faces in the crowd,
But also, the face of every person yet to be,
And his heart filled with love.
As his body was dying, his heart was alive.
Alive with the limitless, unconditional love he feels for each of us.
That is why He walked.
When I forget how much My God loves me,
I remember his walk.
When I wonder if I can be forgiven,
I remember his walk.
When I need reminded of how to live like Christ,
I think of his walk.
And to show him how much I love him,
I wake up each morning, turn my eyes to him,
And I walk.

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A medical doctor provides a physical description:

The cross is placed on the ground and the exhausted man is quickly thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through the wrist deep into the wood. Quickly he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flex and movement. The cross is then lifted into place. The left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees flexed. The victim is now crucified.

As he slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating fiery pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain – the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As he pushes himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, he places the full weight on the nail through his feet. Again he feels the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the bones of his feet.

As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through his muscles, knotting them deep relentless, and throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. He fights to raise himself in order to get even one small breath.

Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream, and the cramps partially subsided. Spasmodically, he is able to push himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen.

Hours of limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-renting cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he moves up and down against rough timber. Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.

It is now almost over. The loss of tissue fluids has reached a critical level. The compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues. The tortured lungs are making frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. He can feel the chill of death creeping through his tissues.

Finally, he allows his body to die.

All this the Bible records with the simple words, “and they crucified Him” (Mark 15:24).

Written by C. Truman Davis, M.D., M.S., Arizona Medicine, Vol. 22 No. 3 March 1965

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A little boy and his father were driving down a country road on a beautiful spring afternoon. Suddenly out of nowhere a bumblebee flew in the car window. Since the little boy was deathly allergic to bee stings, he became petrified. But the father quickly reached out, grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, and then released it. But as soon as he let it go, the young son became frantic again as it buzzed by him.

His father saw his panic-stricken face. Once again the father reached out his hand, but this time he pointed to his hand. There still stuck in his skin was the stinger of the bee. “Do you see this?” he asked. “You don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’ve taken the sting for you.”

This is the message of Easter. We do not need to be afraid of death anymore. Christ faced death for us. And by His victory, we are saved from sin. Christ has taken the sting! As Paul says it, “Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).

Christ has taken the stinger for us. He has risen! Fear is gone. New life is ours.

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Dwight L. Moody told of the young man who did not want to serve in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. When he was drafted, a friend volunteered to go in his place. The substitution was made, and some time later the surrogate was killed in battle.

However, the same young man was, through a clerical error, drafted again.

“You can’t take me” he told the startled officers. “I’m dead. I died on the battlefield.”

They argued that they could see him standing right in front of them, but he insisted they look on the roll to find the record of his death. Sure enough, there on the roll was the man’s name, with another name written beside it.

The case finally went to the emperor himself. After examining the evidence, Napoleon said, “Through a surrogate, this man has not only fought, but has died in his country’s service. No man can die more than once, therefore the law has no claim on him.”

Two thousand years ago, Jesus went to the cross to bear the penalty that rightly belongs to us. He died in our place. And through Him, our names are written in the book with His name written beside ours.

excerpted from Rev. Adrian Dieleman’s “Created to Worship.” As seen in Rocky Henriques’ weekly email, “The Timothy Report,” (www.timothyreport.com), on March 26, 2007

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One Easter Sunday, Mr. Jones, after making a rare appearance church, was leaving following the service. As usual, the preacher was standing at the door greeting the worshipers as they left, shaking their hands. He grabbed Mr. Jones by the hand and pulled him aside. The Pastor said, “You need to join the Army of the Lord!”

The man said, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.”

Pastor questioned, “How come I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?”

He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service!”

It’s going to be a fantastic celebration this Sunday here at WFA. No matter what “branch of the service” you may be in, your tour of duty needs to include worshipping on this Resurrection Sunday! Invite your friends, and come and be blessed and encouraged as we worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ here at WFA!