There once was a time where I lived in a city with well over 5 million inhabitants. To get to the city central, one had to take the public transportation; too many cars. I traveled by plane, train, and cars for years. Now I live on the farm. Long past are the days of suitcases and boarding queues. Know what? I am just fine with that. No I take that back, I am thrilled about that. Where years ago my neighbor was a cogiddy city taxi driver, now my neighbor is any one of the 30+ bovine beasts roaming the pasture next door. Oh sorry… bovine is a cow. But I love it! I did enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city.
I love the experiences living on the farm too. One’s senses get the full extent of farm life each and every day. Shoot, just yesterday a new little calf was born in my very back yard and I got to SEE it. How cool is that? The sounds of cows mooing, the chickens down the road and even the dogs off in the distance are welcomed. But there just one sense that I was reminded of a few weeks ago that isn’t so fun to have, that of smell.
Yep, the oratory factory of my nose before me is quite exceptional. I guess it always has been. I can sniff the best of them. Sometimes it’s a good thing, a few days ago it was not. See it was just the other day that I knew something wasn’t right, I smelled it. It was a foul stench of the dead kind. Something was no longer alive and what was now left of the creature was in its decaying stinky rotten state. Living on the farm wasn’t so pleasant for a moment as I discovered a baby calf had recently departed our parts of creation for cow heaven. What was left STUNK! It was dead dead dead and stunk stunk stunk. It got me to thinking, dead things stink and the longer something is dead the more unpleasant that smell becomes.
I found myself trying to determine how long the carcass had been there. To the best of my recollection, three days. In three days, nature had taken its toll and now nature was burning my nose. Three days is a long time to be dead. Huh, got me to thinking more… I’ve read about a man who was dead for three days and then was alive again. I bet you’ve heard about the same man. Funny thing is, three days is a long time to be dead and then to be alive again. As I ponder this for a moment, I do not find myself pondering the perfume of death but the reality of this man walking, living, breathing and spending time with tons of folks after those three days. As crazy as it seems and mind boggling to consider, it really happened. Some 2000+ years ago there was a man who many liked, but many despised, died on a cross yet three days later and for many days later was hanging out with his buddies and friends. Know what? Three days is a long time to be dead but I’m sure glad those three days didn’t turn into four, five, six and him stay dead. In fact because he was only dead three days, the whole world is different! Lives are forever changed.
In just a few weeks we get to celebrate that he’s not dead anymore. So I hope and wish you and your family a wonderful Easter! Just like Jesus is the reason for the season (at Christmas), he’s the reason for the season at Easter Too!
Happy Easter!