In Jesus's Grave Lie Man's Sins

       The story of Peter is not the most beautiful of the tales that gather about the Man of Galilee, but it is the most precious, for it is a story of a man who fell, but rose again.
       Those three nights and two days glared in Peter's mind through his after years as one hideous dream; that calm Figure, majestic, in spite of the bonds; the rabble crew about the fire; and then that girl's face, Hashing out the challenge that struck him with terror, so that ere he knew, he had stammered out his denial. But clearer than all remained that look of pain and love that pierced him to the heart and drove him forth into the night.
       But neither shame nor fear could hold him in his hiding while his Lord was being done to death; so through the day he followed the crowd, safe hidden, and watched for that display of power that would set him free; watched in vain.
       He followed to Calvary. From behind the rocks he watched the horrid scene. In his own hands he felt the drive of the nails, upon his own brow the tearing thorns, and in his own side the spear thrust to the heart- felt, but dared not utter his cry.
       Then, what place in all the world was left for the man who has dishonored his name, broken his faith, denied his Lord? The city? It is overflowing with the jubilant slayers of his Master. The upper room? There is no place for a traitor in that band. Outside the city wall where they cast their refuse, out to Gehenna, on that rugged ridge, illumined by the baleful fires that never sleep, Peter spends his weary night. Suddenly through the grey light he sees a figure flying as if pursued by demons. The hunted man flings a rope round over the bough of a tree, trembling hands adjust it about his neck, then hurls himself headlong, down upon the rocks below. "Poor Judas! You waited for no look of piercing love when you went forth into the night."A new terror shakes Peter's soul, and drives him to the upper room. With relentless self-abasement, he told them his sin and shame, ending, "And on me cursing he cast a look as if he loved me still." With humble compassion they took him to their hearts, too conscious of the coward in themselves to be hard with the man who had denied and suffered. And then through the morning light sounded the sacred trumpets from the temple announcing that the Great Feast Day was upon them, while their Lord, the Son of God, lay dead in Joseph's tomb.
       Night falls. The last glad trumpet note has ceased, the sounds of the street die down. The men doze off into horrid dreams, but the women do not sleep, they steal down the stairs. It is for them to anoint and garb that precious body for its final rest. Peter waits behind, and over the sad hours of the past days and nights his heart makes weary pilgrimage.
       But hark! There is a sound of running feet! The door bursts open, and the women fling forth their news, their glorious, unbelievable news. The tomb is empty! He is alive!
       "God of Abraham! God of the living, can it be?"
       Peter is down the stairs and up the street, running hard, after him, John.
       But they may save their breath. The tomb is empty, rifled of its dead. Greatly wondering, they return to their company. It is after all only a silly woman's tale.
       But upon them, the door opens again. It is the Magdalene, calm and controlled, but with eyes and face aglow with exultant glory. "He is alive! I have seen him with these eyes! I have held him by the feet! He knew me! He called me by my name! And he gave me a message to you, Peter."
       "No, no, not to me. Not to me."
       "Yes, he said distinctly, 'Tell Peter'‚" and she gives her message. 

       But Peter is gone to find his Lord. With one swift leap, his heart has passed from despair to faith.

        Out of the city gate, but not to Calvary, not to the tomb. Out to the old trysting spot on Olivet, up to the garden where they were wont to meet.

      "Oh, to see him once again, to tell him of my love." His sobs grow quiet, and he becomes aware of a Presence.
       Was it a moment, or was it an hour? Peter never knew; but when he came to himself he was on his way back to the city. They who met him wondered at his face. "I have seen him," he said, "and HE IS JUST THE SAME!"
       Tell the world that Jesus is the same.
       Tell the sick of the world he is the same; his sympathy as quick, his help as ready as of old.
       Tell the outcast he is the same; his fine chivalry making him their champion as before. 

       Tell those who mourn their dead he is just the same; his word as
mighty to revive.
       Tell the whole world, burdened with sin and sorrow, that Jesus, through the glorious risen Lord, is the same; as much a man as ever, as strong and tender as when he walked with the joyous crowds by the sunny waters of Galilee. JESUS IS THE SAME. 

       "He is the same" mused Peter to his friend, "and yet, he is not the same."
       "Said he nought to you of your ------?"
       "Of my sin? Nay, one word only, as I poured it forth, 'Speak no longer of your sin; it lies buried in my tomb' Then it was he spake most like a King, as if he had won the right to bestow his pardon where he would."
       Came a day when they led Peter forth to meet his doom. And when they would have laid him on his Cross, he spoke, "Suffer my head to lie where lay his feet." And so they crucified him, unafraid, for he knew that through Jesus's grave lay the path to life and that in Jesus's grave lie man's sins. by Ralph Connor

"Praise You Just The Same" 

"I recorded this song for my first album ' He Hears Me'. Kevin Hunt on piano. It always lifts me after a tough day or if I'm going thru a hard season. The pictures are dedicated to the raw beauty of Scotland." Deborah Dicembre

Threescore and ten, by common calculation,

The years of man amount to-but we'll say

He turns forescore; yet in my estimation,

In all those years he has not lived a day,

                                                                   J. R. Planche.

On The Day of Preparation

 From The Gospel of St. Luke

       It was the day of the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women, who had come with him out of Galilee, followed after, and beheld the tomb, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
       On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came unto the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb; and they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, while they were perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel: and as they were affrighted and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them: ‚"Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."
       They remembered his words, and returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; and the other women with them told these things unto the apostles. And these words appeared in their sight as idle talk; and they disbelieved them. But Peter arose and ran unto the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths by themselves; and he departed to his home, wondering at that which was come to pass.
       And behold, two- of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was threescore furlongs from Jerusalem. And they communed with each other of all these things which had happened.
       And it came to pass, while they communed and questioned together, that Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them: "What communications are these that ye have one with another, as ye walk?"
       And they stood still, looking sad. And one of them named Cleopas, answering said unto him: "Dost thou alone sojourn in Jerusalem and not know the things which are come to pass there in these days?"And he said unto them: "What things?" And they said unto him: "The things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel. Yea, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things came to pass. Moreover certain women of our company amazed us, having been early at the tomb; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. And certain of them that were with us went to the tomb, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not."
       And he said unto them: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory?" And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

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       They drew nigh unto the village, whither they were going: and he made as though he would go further. And they constrained him, saying: "Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent." And he went in to abide with them. And it came to pass, when he had sat down with them to meat, he took the bread and blessed; and breaking it he gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another: "Was not our heart burning within us, while he spake to us in the way, while he opened to us the scriptures?"
       They rose up that very hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying: "The Lord is risen, indeed, and hath appeared to Simon." And they rehearsed the things that happened in the way, and how he was known of them in the breaking of the bread.
       As they spake these things, he himself stood in the midst of them and saith unto them: "Peace be unto you." But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they beheld a spirit. And he said unto them: "Why are ye troubled? and wherefore do questionings arise in your heart? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said unto them: "Have ye here anything to eat?" And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish. And he took it and ate before them.
       He said unto them: "These are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me." 

       Then opened he their mind, that they might understand the scriptures; and he said unto them: "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Ye are witnesses of these things. Behold I send forth the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high."
      He led them out until they were over against Bethany: and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, blessing God.

• Easter Prophecies and the Road to Emmaus 
• The Gospel of Luke - The Road to Emmaus
• The Way to Emmaus
• Walking with Luke on the Road to Emmaus

"The Third Nest"

The Third Nest: A Easter Story

      It was a late Easter and an early spring. The combination had brought the festival of the resurrection into the heart of the bloom and blossom of the season, instead of the bluster and the blow. The shadows were already heavy beneath the trees, though the tints of the leaves were still delicate. Long blooms hung from the horse chestnuts.

Kirche St. Martin in Zillis,
Kanton Graubünden.

      Out at the water works grounds, beds of flaming tulips broke the level green' Persian lilacs flung out the sweetness of their pinkish sprays, and the snow ball bushes were masses of cream-white. From neighboring grounds came the heavy odor of myriads of apple and peach blossoms, the apple trees almost purple with the density of their branches and blooms, the peach trees slender spears of pink. And, as a background, the glitter of Lake St. Clair, through the branches, until far off it melted into the sky.

      A boy with a dark, foreign face, delicate and refined in spite of his evident neglect and the associations of the street which the violin under his arm suggested--picturesque in the contrast-sat on a seat near a tulip bed. He was looking dreamily at the flowers. He loved them, and it was their attraction that held him there when he ought to have been playing his violin and earning something.

      The flowers made him think of the old cemetery behind St. Martin's church in Zuchvill, in Switzerland. There were so many flowers there that the tourists came from afar to visit it. All the headstones in that cemetery were alike-that was the village law-except one, a plain granite shaft, beneath which was buried the heart of Kosciusko. How often his father had taken him there and told him the story of Kosciusko. He looked at the glimmering strip of lake which he could see and tried to imagine that it was the Aare river, the beautiful Aare which flows through the valley north of Zuchvill.

      But the illusion was not good. Down on the bank of the Aare the violets grew thickly, and he knew there were none on the lake shore, for he had just looked to see; beyond the gleaming river there was the Weissenstein jutting out from the Jura mountains, stretching along the north, blue almost as the sky itself. There was no stretch of pine forest to the left either, and behind him no village nor beechwood-the beechwood where he and Marie used to gather beechnuts. Around him it was beautiful, but it was not the Zuchvill meadow. Oh, that meadow--there was something about the day that him feel like crying, and he had a queer, dizzy sense in his head. It could not be that he was hungry. A boy who has a good breakfast ought to have enough until supper time. He put his hand in his pocket and took out some change, only $1.22. His lodging, together with breakfast and supper, was $1.50. and today was Saturday. It must be that it was only thirst, so he went and got another drink. Then he resolutely drew his bow across the strings. Perhaps the policeman would let him play here a little while. There were a few visitors, he might make a few cents without leaving the dear flowers. Under the spell of the violin the illusions he had sought became clearer, the surroundings became more and more like Zuchvill.

      He remembered one never-to-be-forgotten time, when his father took him out for a little walk, his father, who lived in his memory as a great, big man, with a very black beard, and a voice like no other, so kind and so caressing.

      As they walked along, his father told him stories of Poland, beautiful, suffering Poland, from which he was exiled. Some day it should be free-then he would take his little son up in his arms and kiss him, telling him to try to be a great and good man some day, so he could help to free it. And they two had walked along the Zuchvill meadow together--it was in the spring of the year, when the little flowers bloomed everywhere and he had let go his father's hand to gather flowers. When he came back his father was lying on the ground, he thought asleep, so he lay beside him and slept, too. But there was a difference in their sleep.

      He had not forgotten a detail, for over and over his baby lips had to tell to his mother the last words of his father, and she in turn had told him the reason of the tragedy.

      They were trying new guns at Solothurn, the city of which Zuchvill was really a suburb. His father, who had been away for a few weeks, had not heard of the proposed experiment, and did not notice the signs marking danger line. Daily his mother reproached herself for not warning him, and daily, also, she told her boy of his father until the memory of him became an ideal than which there could be none better.

      After his father's death his mother and he had gone to live at the inn, "Die Schnepfe." She was his teacher in all things and his companion. She loved the violin and she taught him to love it. The little Marie, the child of the innkeeper, was his playmate and fellow student. His mother left, just enough, by saving, to send him to school so that he might become a great man, as his father had wished.

      They lived there a long, long time, and it all was a long time ago. So it seemed to him, yet he was but twelve; and they might have lived on there forever, he and his good mamma, if it had not been for her brother. Here the boy gave his bow a vicious jerk. His mamma had been rich, but her brother had done something with her money, and even after that he would send her letters that made her cry. Here brother was in America, and one day she said they must go to him. When they came to New York her brother was in the hospital, his mother said, and cried. After a while he died. He knew now that it had been the prison hospital. When he wanted to go back his mother said she had no money. Then she had tried to get work to do, and they had lived in a little room in a big building, on a dirty street, nothing like the beautiful Zuchvill, yet it was good enough, so long as his mother lived.
       But she became ill and he sold papers and between times played his violin on the streets. His mother had said that it was begging, but when your mother is ill, what will you do? So he went on playing and did not tell her.
      When she was dying she had told him to remember his father's example and to be true to his faith and his country. She told him it would be better to leave the great wicked city, now that he was alone, and go to Detroit. She had heard that there were many Poles there. Besides, she wanted her boy to grown up where he could sometimes see trees and grass and sky.
      So he played his way to Detroit. It was only six weeks since his mother's death, but it seemed very long since then.
      He played on, Polish airs and Swiss melodies. He knew little American music. The Americans have no songs, he thought they do not need them. Only those who have no country and no father and no mother, who are hungry and homeless, can sing; or, if they have beautiful hills and mountains, as in Switzerland, to echo back the yodels, they might sing for joy.
      Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a little shadow edging steadily nearer. The shadow had curls, a broad hat and skirts, and then another smaller shadow in knickerbockers crept near it. The boy turned his head a little. It might have been Marie of 'Die Schnepfe," at whom he was looking, for just so he remembered her as she was when he and his mother came to America. He had been playing life into his memories, and the fancy seized him to make believe that this little girl was his old playmate. He smiled a little to reassure her for his sudden turn, and she, on her part, came a little nearer and leaned comfortably against a tree opposite him.
      Then he began playing a little song which he and Marie used to sing. It was in the Swiss dialect and composed by a friend of his mother's. It belonged to Zuchvill, and to no other place as much as did the meadow and the beechwood and the view of the Weissenstein.
      The girl's little brother toddled in between them, his brow in a puzzled pucker as he looked at the violin from different points. But Brunislav looked at her eyes across the little fellow's head and played and sang with all his soul. At the end of the stanza he broke out into a joyous yodel, and the girl yodelt too, high and clear. He was making believe that she was Marie and he feared to break the spell if he asked her questions, so he sang the next stanza--this time she sang it all with him.
      There was a bond between them now, and he laid down his violin and asked in the Swiss dialect:
      "Where did you learn that?"
      "From father," she answered.
      "Does he come from Zuchvill?"
      The little girl nodded.
      "Were you ever there?"
      She shook her head. Her mother's injunction against speaking to strangers was severe, and she was shy. It puzzled her to decide whether this boy who sang her father's song was a stranger or not. She hesitated, with the usually fatal results. The lonely and homesick Brunislav kept on talking and she answered less timidly each time.
      "Did your father ever tell you about Kosciusco's heart?"
      She shook her head.
      Brunislav looked incredulous. She seemed far less like Marie than a few minutes ago.
      "Did he ever tell you about the Weissenstein?"
      She nodded. That was better, he thought.
      "Did he ever tell you about the convent down by Solothurn, where the children used to find the Easter eggs in the nests on Easter Sunday morning, and where they used to give us Easter cakes baked like little lambs?"
      She shook her head. "But," she said, "Franzi," pointing to her brother, "and I build nests and mother bakes the Easter lamb cakes for us. Does your mother bake any for you?"
      "I have no mother?"
      "Oh," said the girl, and thought awile.
      Bruinslav started the conversation again by asking, "And do you go out early Easter morning to whistle for the hare that lays the Easter eggs?"
      "No, we wake up too late; father whistles instead."
      Brunislav smiled a superior smile. He was twelve and she was eight, and he had a better idea who put the Easter eggs into the nests than she had.
      She went on: "Franzi and I came over here to see if we could find some nice, green moss for our nests."
      "I'll help you," said Brunislav.
      "Do you build nests, too?"
      "No."
      "Why not?"
      Brunislav tried to think of an answer that would not reveal his lack of faith in the mythical hare.
      "I have no place," he said, at last.
      " I will let you make a nest in our yard," said the girl. "Maybe the hare will find it there, if you put your name in it."
      He did not know what to say, so he was silent.
      "Don't you want to?" she asked, aggrieved.
      "I will if you want me to," he answered, gallantly. By the time they had found the mosses and returned to their home Franzi was hungry, so the girl took him into the house for a lunch. A few minutes later she came back with him, a cookie in each of his hands. Brunislav was still telling himself that he was thirsty, but it was very hard to do so and watch Franzi eating. Women are quick, even in miniature. The little girl ran back into the house and returned with several cookies and divided with him.
      The extra number of cookies consumed made her scrupulous again as to what her mother would say if she knew, and she wanted to hurry her guest.
      "I'll build your nest," she said. From the depths of her pocket she produced a stubby pencil and a bit of druggist's blue wrapping paper. "Write your name on this, she said, as if conferring a special honor in the color, "and I'll put it in the nest for you. When you come tomorrow morning sing "Am Morga Frueh.' Father likes that," she added, with feminine finesse.
      "Is you name Marie?" he asked.
      "Yes," she said.
      Some latent instinct of chivalry made the boy take her little hand and kiss it. Then he went away.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

      On Easter morning John Kulle, Marie's father, with a basket of bright-colored eggs on his arm, was looking for the nests constructed by Marie and Franzi.
      He found each with a label in Marie's very primitive handwriting. But close by there was a third. Strange, of what were the children thinking? He picked up the bit of blue paper, and the name on it gave him a creepy sensation.
      Brunislav Bernaski!"
      He had a European respect for the nobility, and Brunislav Bernascki, though that of a landless and exiled man, was a great name in Zuchvill fifteen years before. Moreover, he had heard of the accident and death.
      He went into the front yard and nervously investigated the lilac bushes, until such time when Marie should get up and he could watch developments.
      Presently there rang out, high and jubilant, "Am Morga Frueh," with its joyous yodel. Surely this was supernatural.
      Later, when Marie got up, she found her friend of yesterday talking earnestly to her father. He staid to breakfast and came back after mass, and staid to dinner and to supper, and the next day he went to work for her father, who owned a flourishing bakery, and stayed at their house for good, to Marie's delight.
      The teachings of his father and mother had been too stern to turn him only to music, and Brunislav is studying law. If he cannot free Poland, he can be the friend of his people in this country. Will he marry Marie? Probably. for The Saint Paul Daily Globe by Eugene Uhlrich, 1896