Biography
David S. Handley is Senior Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, Illinois. A dynamic church of 1,800 members, they serve a variety of needs from a soup kitchen to enormously effective children and youth ministries. Dave studied at both Trinity and McCormick Seminaries and began his ministry at Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. He's a popular speaker and a valuable member of our Minister's Advisory Board. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"The Dawning of A New Life" 
I want to talk with you on this Easter Sunday afternoon about, "When darkness turns to dawning." And I'm very glad that you are tuning in to this message today, because you may be surprised to find yourself in Luke's Easter account in the New Testament. Listen to this:

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women come to the tomb taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone, rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body! While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest....But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

"When darkness turns to dawning." Perhaps that's the way it will be for you this Easter Sunday. Because that is very much the way it was for those first witnesses to Christ's resurrection. Not with a dramatic flash of insight. Not with trumpet and tympani. But in what we call "stages of faith" -- the slow and gradual movement from despair to discovery, from a crisis to a conviction that becomes the rock on which we rebuild our lives.

They rose in darkness, their hearts weighed down with grief and disillusionment. The One in whom they had placed all their hope had been mercilessly nailed to a cross like a common criminal. And God had not intervened. The miracle they had hoped for and prayed for did not come. They carried in their hands the symbol of their despair -- the spices to embalm. How could it get any worse than this? Well, it did. They got to the tomb, just as the first glimmers of dawn pierced the darkness. To their horror they found the stone rolled away, the body of Jesus gone. Mary let out her cry of outrage, "They have taken away my Lord..." And their darkness was complete.

The First Stage of Easter Faith: RECKONING

Now, they could not have known it at the time, but this was the first and necessary stage of spiritual birth. If anyone would have suggested that to them, with the kind of simplistic rationalizations we sometimes get from well-meaning friends, they would have thought it a cruel joke. But they would come to know it later. I call it the stage of RECKONING. The bottom drops out from under us, and we grasp for that proverbial rope we never before noticed was there.

I got a phone call sometime ago from a man who was in just this kind of darkness. His 20-year career with his company had come to an abrupt halt, the victim of yet another buy-out and reorganization. On top of that, his wife had finally had enough, and told him her intention to leave. He was not a "religious" man, he told me. But for the first time in his life he felt out of control, with nothing to hold on to. He had poured his life into this company. His wife had been his primary source of security and strength. And now he saw his very foundations dissolve into a great mudslide, and he had come to the painful reckoning that he had built his house upon sand.

But in that time of reckoning, he had heard the same whispers of the angels those women heard at the tomb. "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Well, of course, he had no inclination whatsoever that this might be the voice of the Holy Spirit. It just sounded to him like a cynical, bitter protest. "What's the use? What's it all been for? What is Life about, anyway?" But he heard it -- the question of reckoning -- the first stage of Easter Faith.
"Why do you seek the Living among the dead?"

The Second Stage of Easter Faith: RUMORS

Well, this "Seeker" was desperate enough to try anything. So he said, "Sure." And I introduced him to one of our members whom I knew to be a good listener, a man who had suffered some scars of his own. And so this Seeker entered into the second stage of faith, which we will call the RUMOR stage. In the Easter accounts, this stage of faith is represented by the two mysterious men at the tomb telling these heart-broken women what would be the most revolutionary rumor that was ever told: "He is not here...he is risen!" Later those women would spread that rumor to the men. But the men would not believe them; they would think it but an idle tale.

So week by week, this Seeker would come to hear "rumors" about Jesus Christ, as this member of our church would listen to the Seeker's anguish, and then share some struggles of his own and how he had found Jesus Christ to hold him up in the midst of it all. Rumors.

The Third Stage of Easter Faith: REMINDER

Now there is locked deep in the human heart this longing, this yearning, after God. Thomas Merton said it: "All human longing is, at base, a longing after God." We may not recognize it as such. Almost like one suffering from amnesia, who has forgotten who he is, and where he has come from. But nevertheless, there is this deep yearning inside, rather like a homesickness. But he's forgotten where home is. And then, someone shows him a picture of his mother. And there is just a glimmer of recognition, a spark of hope. Little memories begin to surface. And memory brings hope, and he begins to re-discover who he is, and to whom he belongs.

Just so is the third stage of faith. We'll call it the stage of REMINDER. When we open the Bible, and begin to read the life of Jesus in the Gospels. And we remember his words -- learned long ago, perhaps. But then it didn't mean anything, because we had no need. But now they blaze into our consciousness, almost as if he were right here Himself! And just so, these two mysterious figures at the tomb said to the women, "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?"

And then they remembered His words.

So, week by week this picture was held up to this professedly non-religious "Seeker" -- the picture of Jesus -- who was at the heart of his homesickness. This Seeker, who was so desperately needing a Power beyond his own just to cope with the anguish of his life, now began to have something like a spiritual memory come to him as he looked at the picture of Jesus in the Gospels. And finally, the week came when they were reading the accounts of Jesus' death on the cross. And this man -- hard-bitten, church-proof -- was brought face to face with this incredible human being who had claimed to be "dying for our sins." And he found himself thinking, "Either this is the biggest hoax of human history; or it is the greatest news that the world has ever known!" As he saw this picture of Jesus on the cross, in his own pain he felt a strange identification with this man. As he read those haunting words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," it seemed that this Jesus was bringing to God all of his own frustrations and hurt and sense of abandonment. And when this Galilean cried out "Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit!," it seemed that this Jesus was bringing to God all the highest hopes and noblest passions of his own heart. And so at last he came to the fourth stage of faith, the REVELATION, when the circuit is completed and faith is born.

The Fourth Stage of Easter Faith: REVELATION

The Seeker told his faith companion he felt a little bit like one time when he had witnessed Yankee Stadium being lit up. Back in the days when they used to use those large circuit-breaker levers. As a boy, he had gone with his dad to visit a friend who managed Yankee Stadium. And the man pointed out to the dark field, and said, "Watch this" as he took that huge lever with both hands and moved it over to complete the circuit. The electricity flowed over the bridging circuit and the whole dark stadium was flooded with light. And this non-religious, church-proof Seeker said, "Looking back now, it was like I was hanging on to Jesus' feet, and Jesus threw himself on the cross, took hold of the hands of God, and completed the circuit. And I was carried right into the presence of the Almighty!"

Are You on This Journey?

Well, what about you? Have you found yourself in this Easter story yet? Have you heard the whispers of the angels, "Why? Why do you seek the 'good life' among the dead promises of this world?" Well, look. If you're in the darkness of that RECKONING time, then listen for the RUMORS that you surely will hear now from those who claim to experience His presence. "He is not here. He is risen!" And if you can't believe these wild and crazy rumors, don't despair. The men on that first Easter didn't believe them either! They had to do their own research before they REMEMBERED what he had said. And maybe you'll have to pick up a Bible and read it for yourself. But sooner or later, the REVELATION will come. Perhaps more like a dawning awareness than a flash of insight. Yes! "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" Alleluia!

Interview with David Handley
Interviewed by David Handley

David Hardin: Dave, in your fine words you were saying that these are the stages people go through. I am aware of the fact that there is this "born again" experience which is a very sudden thing. Do you want to comment on the difference there or what that is all about?

David Handley: Dave, I believe very much in being "born again," but I think that happens in process for most of us. People sometimes ask me what it is like to be a preacher. I usually respond, "Well, it is a little bit like being a spiritual midwife."

Physical birth happens in process. We are kind of pushed out of the warm, secure environment of the womb and then into the pressure and pain of the birth canal and into a new life. I think spiritual birth happens very much the same way.

James Fowler wrote the book, Stages of Faith. It is the psychology of human development over the life cycle of a person's life, but I think that any given moment of a person's life, we also go through these times in stages of faith.

Hardin: I guess what I am hearing is that it is okay either way.

Handley: Absolutely.

Hardin: That is the point.