Reformátusok Lapja, 1971 (71. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1971-03-01 / 3. szám

10

REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

it is truly the church in the pristine, New Testament meaning of the term” says Dr. John Mackay “is composed of people who have been made alive . . . Any kind of human association whose members are not bound together by a . .. common experience of renewal by Christ, cannot with any propriety be called a cburch . . .” We sing joyfully today: “Christ is risen” but let me ask you with all seriousness: How do you know that He is risen? Because others say it, because your church teaches it, or because you have experienced and can confess it: “This is my own, my very own; something that has come to me not as a second hand tradition but as a first hand experience.” Ye shall be my witnesses, Jesus promised. “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses” the first Christians testified. Witnesses of the Resurrection: who know the facts by personal acquaintance, by first hand experience. “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!”

Three days after the death of Mahatma Gandhi, at a mass meeting held in India, a disciple of the departed teacher opened his speech with these words: “Master it is three days since you died. Come back, Come back!” That is the hungry cry of human souls, the cry for living companionship; it is the presence we want not just principles; a teacher, not just teachings, a Redeemer, not just a doctrine of salvation. And thank God, that is what we have in the Easter message: He is risen! “Fear not; I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”

A Moslem once told a Christian missionary that when they went to Medina, they could at least find a coffin, but that when a Christian goes to Jerusalem, he finds an empty grave. “That is just the difference” said the missionary “Mohammed is dead, but Jesus is risen.” We proclaim that Christ is our contemporary. Contemporary not only in the sense that He is never out of date but in the sense that He is here victoriously. By the resurrection God made Him both Lord and Christ in this world of ours, and in the world to come. Easter is the proclamation of a practical Christian victory over sin, death and all forms of evil; for the Resurrection was, and is, the sign of God’s unshakable determination to make Christ Lord of all, now and forevermore.

“Well” someone may say incredulously, “it certainly does not look like it. Look at the international scene. Look at our current literature. Look at the chaos in morals. See how evil flaunts itself in the open, how it strikes its roots deeper and still deeper.” Yes, I know. But I also know that if Christ is risen — and I am a witness to that fact! — than evil is doomed, never has anything been more doomed, doomed from the foundation of the world. But the trouble with our broken warring world is that too often in our churches we are still on the wrong side of Easter. We are back where the disciples were between Good Friday and Easter. We are groping, fumbling in the dark.

We may talk pessimistically about the future of Christianity. Especially when we see brutal forces picking away at it we find ourselves wondering, is it possible that force and injustice may prevail against Christ and His church? We are on the wrong side of Easter if we question the ultimate outcome of this warfare. For watch those witnesses of the Resurrection in the first century. Was their world better than ours? In 95 A.D., the Roman emperor Domitian sent out a decree that he, an earthly ruler, was to be worshiped as dominus et deus, lord and god. The Christians were threatened to obey the emperor’s order or else to die, and yet they could not obey . . . Thus the background was the spirit of Babylon, mother of all abominations of the earth, drunk with the blood of the followers of Jesus, laughing in the intoxication of her triumph, shrieking with laughter to see the poor, pathetic Body of Christ being crushed and mangled and battered out of existence. In this crisis they received a message from a fellow Christian who was a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos. What did he write? “The battle is lost? Our case is doomed? There is nothing left but to sue for mercy?” Is that what we see in his writings? No. But this: Babylon is fallen. Christ is King: King of kings and Lord of lords. How did he know it? He lived on the right side of Easter and in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and he realized the dramatic truth that no nation or system built against the Kingdom of Christ can stand very long ... Friends, this is true even today, and if we are witnesses of the Resurrection we cannot have any doubts that God is at work to destroy any dominion that is against Him. Don’t ask me how and when, for I don’t know. But one thing I know: He that sitteth in the heavens laughs when He sees the kings of the earth and the rulers of the world set themselves against the Lord and against his Anointed. (Psalm 2:2-4) I know that we must either anchor our lives and our system to the lasting values of the Spirit or we build on sand. This is not a guess, this is a fact, proven in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Easter affirms us not only about the doom of evil and the ultimate victory of Christ, but also about the transforming power of God. God can transform evil. “After man does his worst on Good Friday, God does His best at Easter.” Out of that grim cross He has brought the salvation of the world. If God did that with the cross of Jesus, do you think your cross can be too difficult for Him to deal with and to transfigure? Believe me, He can make it shine with glory.

Let us never separate Easter from the cross, for the first step to enter into Easter joy is not resurrection but crucifixion. You never really get what Easter means if you have not been through Good Friday with Christ. It is the crucifixion of pride, narrowness, stupidity, ignorant prejudice, intolerance, laziness, lack of vision, and self satisfaction that we need in order to realize the power of resurrection. For there is no resurrection without crucifixion. On the cross either God’s will is crucified and our will prevails or our will is crucified and God’s will may prevail. That