THE MESSAGE OF THE RESURRECTION
Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua
It appears that the human person
is endowed with so much capacity that many people do not exhaust ten percent of
the energy in them before they die. According to Mariah Carey, “there’s a hero,
if you look inside your heart, you don’t have to be afraid of what you are.”[1] Perhaps Roy Kelly, another musician felt this energy in him when he
sang, “I used to think that I could not go on and life was nothing but
an awful song. But now I know the meaning of true love. I’m leaning on the
everlasting arms. If I can see it, then I can do it. If I just believe it,
there’s nothing to it. I believe
I can fly! I believe I can touch the sky!” Some people have used the energy and the hero in them to make life a better
place for themselves and for people around them. This is the energy that is
channeled and directed positively. Some other people have used the energy in
them to destroy themselves and the people around them.
The resurrection is the victory over death, victory over any form of
weakness and victory over the power of darkness (sin). For the Muslims, Jesus
was too important and too great to die whereas for Christians, death does not
destroy God’s message, and in weakness we are strong. In death, Jesus was
stronger and his followers who believe in him overcame death and posses
immortality through weakness and death. These views could be better appreciated
in the form of dialogue of “religious experience” where we have the freedom to
express how we feel about God. Like in a dream, no one has the right to tell a
partner in dialogue that what he or she experienced in a dream is wrong. We all
have personal testimonies about our relationship with God.
According to Sr. Prof. Theresa Okure SHCJ, the Biblical religion is not a
theory that tries to set itself above or assess other religions. Its concern is
to urge, persuade and challenge the people of its covenants to live by these
covenants, Old Testament and New Testament. If they touch other religions at
all, as in such sayings “the gods of the heathens are naught” (Psalm 96, 5), it
is still from the inside, to dissuade the people from idolatry; based on the
First Commandment. For Christians, the one commandment Jesus gave us is John
13, 34, “Love one another as I have loved you”. Loving as Jesus loves us
replaces loving one’s neighbour as oneself, because in this love one is called to lay down one’s life for
the beloved. This is explained in John 15, 13: “No one can have greater love
than to lay down one’s life for his friends”.
Whether or not we and the world believe in the resurrection or not, it neither
adds nor subtracts from its reality. Human beings have no veto, compromising or
negotiating power whatsoever over what God has done. That is just
inconceivable. For the first Christians
the resurrection was something they experienced and sought to experience in
their lives by the transformation of those lives. When they said, “risen then
with Christ you must look for the things that are above where Christ is seated
at God’s right hand”, “let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus,” “God
has transferred you from death to life, from darkness to life”. The
resurrection means a new creation, a new humanity/Adam, new world order in
which all are participants whether they know it or not. As God did not take a
cue from or consult us in the first creation, God does not take a cue or
instructions from us in this new creation. Yet in God’s infinite love and
goodness, both the old and the new creations are God’s free gift for us,
gratis. We cheat ourselves by sitting on the fence criticizing it instead of
making our way into it by living and maintaining transformed resurrection, new
and renewed lives. God’s new creation excludes no one. Individuals exclude
themselves, to their own loss. May no one deprive themselves of this free,
gratuitous singular gift of God![2]
The resurrection is a call to
renewal of life. The Easter joy is a call to rise from our miserable conditions
to a gracious hope. Jesus stands at the door and knocks seeking the fellowship
of believers who have not been with him. We have the freedom to invite him in
by having a renewal of life so that he can dine and fellowship with us
(Revelation 3, 20). The resurrection
proves that Jesus is pre-eminent in each of our lives (Colossians 1, 15-18). “I
urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a
living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12,
1). The risen Christ sits in heaven as our advocate. As our Lord, he walks
amongst the Churches examining our lives (Revelations 2, 1). Paul told Timothy,
“Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David” (2 Timothy 2,
8). We can even flash back to the call to faith by Elijah, “How long will you hesitate between two
opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Kings 18,
21). God reminds us of his absolute sovereignty over life and death in
resurrecting Jesus from the grave as Paul told the Corinthians, “Where, O death
is your victory? Where, O death is your sting” (1 Corinthians 15, 55).
The resurrection is a message of
the hero that lies within each and every one of us. Jesus did not promise us a
smooth journey but a safe arrival, yet many people today do not see the
relevance of the cross as a way to greatness and a means of salvation. The cross
is being replaced by some preachers with the gospel of prosperity whose content
is social activism and material affluence. The message is changing from the
suffering servant to a rich God with the caption “my God is not a poor God”.
Many people today do not want to talk about sin that Jesus came to die for. The
Jews expected a Messiah who would free them from the yoke of the Romans but at
the dawn of their liberation in the person of Jesus, they plugged themselves
back into the web of the Romans by preferring a robber, Barabbas to Jesus. They
forgot the message of Isaiah that their Messiah would be the one who would
suffer for the sins of the people (Isaiah
53, 1-3.)
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