Reformátusok Lapja, 1971 (71. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1971-03-01 / 3. szám
Hungarian Reformed Religious Paper Founded in 1900 OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE CALVIN SYNOD — UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST KOSSUTH Death in the battle is not death, Deep, deep, may seem the mortal groan, Yet sweeter than an infant’s breath Is Honor’s on that field alone Where Kossuth called his Spirits forth Aloft from Danaw’s heaving breast; They quelled the South, they shook the North, They sank by fraud, not strength repres’t. If Freedom’s sacred fire lies quench’t, O England! was it not by thee? Ere from such hands the sword was wrench’t, Thine was the power to shield the free. Russels erewhile might raise their crest Proud as the older of our land, Although I find but in the best Their embroidered glove of Sidney’s hand. Rachel may mourn her children now; From higher source her glory springs, Where Shakespeare crowns Southampton’s brow Above the reach of gaze of kings. Russells! where? where? To waver high Faction the slender twig may place, And cover, when that twig shall die, With plumes as dark as dark disgrace. Drive the drear phantom from my sight, O Kossuth! Round our wintry shore, Spread broad thy strong and healthy light, And I will tread these weeds no more. Each, be he soldier, sage, or bard, Must breast and cross the sea of strife, Ere swells the hymn, his high reward, Sung from the Book of Life. What casket holds it, in what shrine Begem’d with pearl and priceless stone? The treasury is itself divine .... The poet’s breast . . . ’tis there alone. Walter Savage Landor Witnesses of the Resurrection Acts 2:32 In the fifteenth chapter of the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, which is the earliest and most important testimony to the Resurrection of Jesus, Paul sets down the facts as follows: “I delivered to you first of all, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, and after that to the eleven, . . . then He appeared to more than five hundred brethren . . . and last of all, as by one born out of due time, He was seen also by me . . .” You see, Paul was not content to merely state documentary evidence for the Lord’s resurrection, but from the documentary, he went on to make appeal to the experimental evidence for the resurrection. “Last of all He appeared unto me . . . You have been raised with Christ.” This is the authentic note of early Christianity. That is what counted in their lives, and we can be sure, that is what counts in our lives. Unless He has appeared to us, all these other appearances of which we have record in the New Testament are important and interesting historical events, but they do not count too much. Not unless we can add “And last of all He appeared unto me” can the historical evidences mean life to us and proof to our world. There is a big mistake about Easter in our midst today. The mistake about Easter is imagining that its message is a matter of argumentation on the immortality of our souls. But friends, Paul was not the author of speculations, but the communicator of an experience, and for the first Christians, the Gospel was not an invitation to discuss life’s problems; it was rather the announcement of an event with which men must reckon whether men like it or not. “Christians can never explain the resurrection” says Bishop Kennedy “because it is the resurrection that explains them.” Yes friends, the vital function of a Christian disciple is not to argue about Easter, but to be a witness of the Resurrection . . . He is to walk among men as living evidence of the living Lord. The trouble with our Christianity today is that we embalmed the risen Christ in creeds and phrases and definitions, buried Him under the debris of empty veneration and tradition, and forget that the risen Christ must be a realized Christ or else we are not among those whom the Bible calls Christians. “The Church when
