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By Pastor Glenn Pease
One of the reasons that Ferdinand and Isabella supported Columbus in his scheme to find a new world was their hope that he would also find the fountain of life.
When Columbus landed he searched for it, and he questioned the Indians about the legendary fountain that would make old men young again.
These Indian legends made their way back to Spain, and they told of how old men could make love again to a young wife and bear children, if they drank from this fountain.
King Ferdinand, not long after Columbus sailed, sent out Ponce de Leon to find the island where this fountain was supposed to exist.
The Spaniards did want gold for the present, but they wanted the fountain for the future, for they wanted life that lasted forever.
This was one of the powerful motivating factors in their drive to explore the new world.
Men have always longed for life that was immortal.
Animals do not, but men do, because they are made in the image of the Immortal Creator, and so they have an inherent desire for immortality.
Ponce de Leon went from island to island drinking the water, but with no effect.
On Easter Sunday he landed on what he thought was an island, and he called it Florida.
They drank water from many springs, but no miracles.
Again, they asked the Indians questions about the fountain of youth.
He was convinced that Florida was where it was at.
The Pope was informed that they were on the right trail, and he too was excited about the search.
It was a Christian mission to find paradise, but instead, Ponce de Leon found death by an Indian arrow, and the search ended.
This deep devotion to the notion that somewhere across the ocean there is a potion that will give eternal life has always been a part of the human drama.
Ancient stories tell of how men have been able to drink the Elixer of the gods, and thereby be restored to youth.
The Greeks tell of Tantalus who became immortal by drinking of the nectar and ambrosia of the gods.
The Koran tells of a fountain of life where dying fish are renewed by drinking of its water, and a dead fish dropped in it will swim away as a young and active fish again.
Alexander the Great was told of a fountain in Arabia that would make a man immortal if he could drink but one drop.
In the middle ages Christians thought India was the place where the fountain could be found.
Many went in search, and Prester John developed a Christian kingdom in India, and he wrote to the Pope that the fountain of youth was there.
The legend has become a part of cultures all over the world, and texts on the pyramids of Egypt talk of the everlasting beverage and the water of life.
Whenever you have such a universal legend you can assume there is some foundation for it in fact.
Man wants to be able to drink some water that will give him eternal life.
Is this sheer foolishness, or does the Bible encourage us to believe there is such a fountain of life?
David writes in Ps. 36:8-9 about God's provision for those whom He loves, and He writes, "You give them drink from your river of delights, for with you is the fountain of life."
So the idea is not far fetched, but just the direction men go to seek it is foolish.
It is not in Arabia, India, Florida, or on any island.
The fountain of life is with God.
Man in his rebellion against God seeks to find the fountain of life on his own, and become independently immortal.
Jer.
17:13 shows the prophet lamenting the folly of Israel in choosing death instead of life.
"For they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water."
Like Ponce de Leon, men want to find their own fountain and not be dependent upon God.
They always find death, however, instead of life.
This is the folly of man all through history.
In Jer.
2:13 God describes this universal conflict: "For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns can hold no water."
The reason men are forever seeking for a fountain of life is because they refuse to take the water of life as a gift.
They do not want it as a gift of grace.
They want is as a result of their own labor and discovery, so they can say they found it, and they did it, and they achieved immorality by their own wits and works.
Meanwhile the Bible gives clear directions to the treasure that men desperately seek.
Prov.
14:27 says, "The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death."
In the New Testament the entire plan of God for man is all wrapped up in Jesus Christ leading the redeemed to the goal for which they long.
It is the goal for which they are made, and it is that they live forever in perpetual youth.
Rev. 7:17 says, "For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will lead them to springs of living water."
In Rev. 21:6 we read this climatic statement about the fountain of life.
"It is done!
I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life."
You cannot find this water, or make it, or buy it, or in any way acquire it by human effort.
It is God's gift, and Easter is the day God made it clear to man that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to find the fountain of life.
He, and He alone, has the power to make life immortal, and the right to give everlasting youth.
If you want to quench the universal thirst for the water of life you need to simply ask Jesus to forgive your sin, and come into your life as Lord.
Easter is a day on which we celebrate His victory over death, but it is also the day we celebrate our own victory, for by faith in Jesus we too will live forever and drink of the fountain of life.
That which men have sought for and been willing to pay anything for is available to all who will take it freely as a gift.
The only catch is that you must let Him be your Savior, and give up the task, once and for all, of trying to save yourself.
You must surrender to win this greatest of all battles.
Man loves life and naturally so, for God made him that way.
The thirst for everlasting life is a God given thirst, but it is also a thirst that only He can quench.
Men are constantly tinkering and tampering with life in the hopes of gaining some kind of control over it.
We are living in an age of biological revolution as science learns how to manipulate life.
This is the age of the surrogate mother, the artificial body parts, the sperm bank, genetic engineering, and cloning.
Most of what men can do is at the beginning stages of life, but he is working on the other end also, and striving to prolong life, but he has not come close to the fountain of youth yet.
Men can do a lot with life, but they cannot make it start, or make it last.
The origin and on going of life are in God's hands.
Man can prolong life for sometime, but only God can make it permanent.
The potential for this permanent life, as well as abundant life, is what Easter is all about.
Jesus died young, but on Easter He arose in that same young body to live forever in the prime of life.
Jesus found the fountain men have ever searched for.
Violet Storey put it in poetry.
And He was only thirty-three...
The year had come to spring-
And He hung dead upon a tree,
Robbed of its blossoming.
Sorrow of sorrows that Youth should die
On a dead tree 'neath and April sky.
And he was only thirty-three...
Anthems of joy be sung-
For, always, the Risen Christ will be
A God divinely young.
Glory of glories, a Tree, stripped bare,
Shed now Faith's blossoms everywhere.
That tree, the cross, is now no longer a symbol of fear and shame, but a symbol of victory, for now it represents the fountain of youth.
The resurrection of Christ changed everything; the past, the present, and the future.
It transformed the cross, and has in it the potential to change everything.
We want to focus on the Easter potential as we see it when the risen Christ appeared to His disciples that first Easter evening.
We see the risen Christ offering to His disciples the very two things that men have sought for in the fountain of youth, and they are perpetual pleasure and power.
These are the keys to the joy of life.
Take away pleasure and power and life is no longer a treasure.
Life is only truly life when there is some degree of pleasure and power.
Permanent and perpetual pleasure and power is what the Easter potential is all about.
Let's look at these two ingredients of a happy now, and a happy forever.
I. THE EASTER POTENTIAL FOR PLEASURE.
The disciples got no pleasure from their first encounter with the risen Christ, for they feared He was a ghost, and seeing a ghost has never been man's idea of fun.
The first thing Jesus did was to give them a lesson on ghosts by letting them touch Him, and feel that He had flesh and bones.
These, He points out, are conspicuously absent in your typical ghost.
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