Across Pacific & Asia


EASTER:
THE PERFECT ANTIDOTE FOR THE TERRORS OF LIVING

By Jeremy Reynalds



ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (ANS) -- Nobody can deny that we live in a seriously troubled world.

In addition to ongoing terror threats and wondering how long it will be before we see another 9/11, we continue to see evidence of the world’s troubles on a daily basis.

In the last 36 hours we’ve seen a judge, his court reporter and a deputy sheriff mercilessly gunned down in Atlanta (and that doesn’t include another deputy sheriff who was also injured in the melee and a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution newspaper who was car jacked and pistol whipped).

Then there’s all the other violence and nastiness that doesn’t make national headlines. For example. An article in a recent edition of the Albuquerque Tribune online (www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_state/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19863_3540676,00.html)  was headlined “‘Pervert’ dies in siege. Neighbors recoiled at nakedness.”

On top of that we have killings, muggings, rapes and burglaries in our communities nationwide on a regular basis (tune in to your local television news if you doubt me), rampant divorce, a disturbing lack of morality among some religious leaders, a never-as-strong-as-we’d-like stock market, and so the list goes on.

What a depressing scenario! It's no wonder that prior to his death convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy Mcveigh was reported to have told the authors of “American Terrorist,” (a book that chronicled McVeigh’s life story and related his story of the crime) that he was looking forward to his impending execution, because “this world just doesn’t hold anything for me ... I’ll be glad to leave this (expletive) world.”

Like McVeigh I also used to feel an overwhelming sense of futility about life in this world. As Billy Graham once said, I was suffering from “cosmic loneliness.”

However, a realization (resulting from a spiritual awakening almost 30 years ago) that Jesus Christ had risen bodily from the grave and had conquered death, changed my whole life and replaced aimless futility and loneliness with a sense of hope, purpose and destiny.

It was my new found purpose in life that some years later was directly responsible for my founding Joy Junction, New Mexico’s largest emergency homeless shelter. The Lord had been so good to me that I felt constrained to pass on the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to those who were physically homeless, spiritually adrift and in desperate need of a reason to keep on living.

Sadly, in today’s culture an unshakeable belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is thought of as being bigoted and exclusive, or “old hat,” an outmoded system of thinking reserved for those “ignorant” evangelicals who hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Yet such a belief could give some badly needed hope and encouragement to the other Timothy McVeighs and American- hating terrorists waiting in the wings looking for a place to happen. The hope offered at the upcoming Easter season by Jesus Christ is the only way of preventing another 9/11 or worse.

Those who dismiss the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus and neglect making Him the basis for their lives, end up mocking the very foundation upon which Easter is based. All they’re left with is the empty and unsatisfactory shell of the Christian gospel.

GOOGLING EASTER

Knowing that an increasing number of people spend more and more time online, I thought I would see how Easter ranks in cyberspace. I went to www.google.com  and typed in “Easter.” In 0.09 seconds Google returned a staggering hotchpotch of 21,600,000 hits.

While a number of hits gave a good definition of what Easter is all about, sadly many of them had nothing at all to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. One hit read, (sic) “Hoppy Easter Welcome to a Holiday Celebration. Easter is the time of springtime festivals, a time to welcome back the Tulips, the Crocuses and the Daffodils.”

Another read, “Easter site with lots of jokes, games and color in sections for children. Easter Features.”

Then there was the requisite Easter egg site. “The Easter Egg Archive: Hidden secrets in software, movies, music. The things you use and see everyday probably have hidden Easter Eggs in them, and this is the place to discover those Eggs.”

THE RESURRECTION

Now there’s nothing wrong with eggs, as long as the central theme of Easter isn’t omitted. Sadly, most of the time it is. Easter is about much more than colored eggs and as Asbury Seminar New Testament Professor Ben Witherington pointed out, the Resurrection, which Easter is all about, is “not just a spiritual change in a person’s life; nor is it merely the blooming of flowers and trees when spring returns. The Resurrection is the bringing back from the dead of Jesus Christ in the flesh.”

Witherington tells a sad but revealing story about standing outside a small English chapel on Easter Sunday morning. He was waiting to talk with a church official about the upcoming service at which he was scheduled to preach.

The man looked at Witherington and said he had to ask him a question. Talking to Witherington, the church official asked “‘You do believe in the Resurrection, don’t you?’ (Witherington) said, ‘Yes, absolutely, that’s what Easter is all about; it’s the heart of the Christian faith.’ And he replied, ‘I’m ever so relieved. The last chap who preached on Easter didn’t.’”

The fact of the resurrection is the very heart and soul of Christianity; not some mythical sort of unquantifiable spiritual transformation, but a physical bodily resurrection. Christianity is the only major world religion where the bones of its founder are not lying in some tomb. That is why Biblical literalists (also known as evangelicals, of which I am proud to be one) get so excited about the Bible and proclaim that they have found the truth.

Proclaiming that you’ve found the truth is anathema to many academics, whose opinions cloaked as truth ultimately filter down to mainstream America and the rest of the world. At many secular academic institutions it is a badge of academic honor to be on a continuous search for the truth. However, try finding it. Then you’ll end up getting labeled as a bigot.

This Easter, I encourage you to take an honest look at the claims of Jesus Christ. If you do so, not only will you find a real purpose for your life. You will also come away with the needed strength to cope with everything that is occurring today in our crisis ridden world. That is quite literally the best deal anyone could get during this crisis ridden month as we approach the joy and the simplicity of Easter.

Jeremy Reynalds is a freelance writer and the founder and director of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org or http://www.christianity.com/joyjunction. He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico and is a candidate for the Ph.D. in intercultural education at Biola University in Los Angeles. He is married with five children and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jgreynalds@aol.com. Tel: (505) 877-6967 or (505) 400-7145. Note: A black and white JPEG picture of Jeremy Reynalds is available on request from Dan Wooding at danjuma1@aol.com.


ASSIST News Service (ANS) - www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com



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