Maravi

The Easter love story

The Easter love story
By The Post
Sat 23 Apr. 2011, 04:00 CAT

Many people around the world are anticipating with happy excitement the April 29 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. This marriage has come about because of their love for each other. Prince William is a potential king, second in line to the throne.

No reasonable person would wish him anything less than a wonderful wedding day and a fulfilling married life with Catherine. Considering this over against Easter, we find a great contrast. In the Easter story, we meet another king, the King of kings, but this One gave up everything for love. His love for sinful humanity meant taking our place and dying for sin.

Instead of funfair heralding the Messiah, Jesus was confronted by an angry crowd stirred up by jealous and misdirected leaders who called for his death by execution.

No wedding bells for Jesus Christ, but, rather, a horrid and lonely death on a Roman cross.

Yet the story of Jesus Christ is one that will be told and retold across the globe.

The grave could not hold him. Jesus rose from the dead! And he promised to return, this second time as King.

His love for every person on this planet, both small and great, has made salvation possible for all.

At this time of the year, we share the greatest love story ever told. It’s not about a boy-girl or man-woman relationship. It’s about a father and son.

In our world today, people are craving for love.

They have a hunger for love. Sadly in many families, love is a missing ingredient and some are unable to find love in a relationship.

The Easter story is the great love story told about a father – in this case God – and His Son Jesus Christ.

In John 13:1, it is recorded: “It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.”

The love of God is not just a story to be told; it is a love to be experienced and it is an extensive love that reaches to all. In John 3:16, it is recorded: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The author of love is God – for God is love. The object of His love – the world. The demonstration of His love – His only Son died on the cross. The recipients of His love – whoever believes in Him. The security of His love – everlasting life. This is a true story; the greatest love story ever told.

For those with ears to hear, the groaning of creation has become a roar: violence, terror, inequitable access of the world’s people to life’s basic necessities and environmental degradation – so many people have reason to echo Jesus’ gut-wrenching cry from the cross: “My God, why have you abandoned me?”

This Easter, as always, Christians will inhabit the core story of the faith: empty tomb, puzzlement, fear, hope, resemblance, disbelief, amazement and so on and so forth.

Easter provides the distinctive basis for hope in the Christian faith – the faithfulness of God who not only bears our sorrows and is acquainted with our grief, but who works to bring life out of death and hope from despair.

The vocabulary of Easter precludes denial about the depth of the world’s brokenness and yet saves us from despair.

It is the great, nevertheless, that affirms that ultimately the last word in life and death belongs to a gracious God.

We are called and empowered to bear witness in our worship, in our efforts to seek justice, in our service to the God who makes all things new.

Therefore, this Easter, what is expected of us is to experience, each of us in our unique personal way, an authentic expression of our faith with the community of this world; a community which becomes perfected in the liturgical community of His love.

However, as mere persons, we are never certain as to what is authentic, for it is not given unto us to know the fullness of truth, as we are sinful and possessed of all our human frailties.

For this reason, Christ is our only measure, the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).

The murdered Christ is here in the person of all who struggle for justice and for life. In the drama of the world, all the actors are human beings.

We are all of us equal, as well as different, in God’s eyes.

And yet, the two together – equality and difference – are hard to come by in our history.

Then suddenly, through the heroic deeds of those who struggle every day to improve the lives and dignity of our people, we see something of it.

Men and women are repressed, oppressed and humiliated in Zambia.

Men and women have raised their lamentation to God and begged God to hear the cries wrung from them by their oppressors, abusers, humiliators.

Men and women have thrown in their lot with the struggle for justice – for a more just, fair and humane society.

And men and women have fallen in that struggle. Here is the most profound quality of all: equality in suffering and in hope.

This is what Easter brings us and teaches us. Christ’s entire doctrine was devoted to the humble, the poor; his doctrine was devoted to fighting against abuse, injustice and the degradation of human beings.

It is through our fellow human being, and especially the one who lacks life and needs justice, in whom God wishes to be served and loved. They are the ones with whom Jesus identifies.

Therefore, there is no contradiction between the struggle for justice and the fulfillment of God’s will. One demands the other. All who work along that line of God’s scheme for life are considered Jesus’ brothers and sisters (Mark 3:31-35).

This is the best way to follow Jesus, especially in our country’s present situation. Jesus had a spirituality of the conflict – that is, a vigour in his commitment to the poor and to the Father who granted him immense eternal peace.

What Easter teaches us is that true peace is not obtained by erecting walls; it is the result of trust in God. Courage is not the opposite of fear, faith is.

That faith gave Jesus the necessary will for carrying out the scheme of life, even by sacrificing his own life in confrontation with the forces of death, such as abuse, oppression, injustice and religion made sclerotic by rules and rights.

Labels: CHRISTIANITY, HOLIDAYS

posted by MrK @ 2:10 PM