He was the only white person buried in a Georgia cemetery reserved exclusively for African-Americans. He had lost his mother when he was just a baby. His father, who never married again, hired a black woman named Mandy to help him raise his son. She was a Christian, and she took her task seriously. Seldom has a motherless boy received such warmhearted attention. One of his earliest memories was of Mandy bending tenderly over him in his upstairs bedroom each morning and softly saying, "Wake up, God's mornin' is come."

As the years passed, this devoted woman continued to serve as his substitute mother. The young man went away to college, but when he would come home each holiday and summer, she would climb the stairs - more slowly now - and call him out of bed in the same loving way. One day, after he had finished school and become a successful businessman, the sad message came: "Mandy is dead. Can you come to the funeral?"

Of course, he came; and as he stood by her grave, he turned to his friends and said, "When I die, I want to be buried here beside Mandy. I like to think that on Resurrection day, she'll speak to me again and say, "Wake up, God's morning is come."

Finally, on this Easter morning, we celebrate the fact that for each of us, after all is said and done, there is the certainty that one day we too will hear, not Mandy's voice, but the voice of our Savior saying gently, "Wake up, God's mornin' is come."