Magyar Egyház, 1972 (51. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1972-03-01 / 3. szám
8 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ MAGYAR CHURCH Caőtcr jWeiJítatíon Wherever they may be, God’s people are a people apart. Though called to be a part of the world, they must also be a part of God’s kingdom. This paradox, being in yet not of, underlies the Easter message. It means that the Christian Church is ideally at its best when it is exposed to the worst that the world has to offer. And, at the same time, the Church of Christ becomes weakest when the world it inhabits offers too comfortable a home. According to John’s Gospel, God loved and gave. He loved the world that enthroned evil and debased virtue. He loved the world that enjoyed the trappings of religion while it avoided moral obligations. He loved, for all the wrong reasons. We of the post- Christian era love for all the right reasons. We love because we see loving as an end, not a means. We love because we know that it pays off in the long run. And we thus miss the point of the Easter miracle, we get so lost in the enjoyment of our spring festival that we lose sight of God’s divine purpose. We resemble the veterans of wars past who remember the great experiences of youth without also recalling their context. We are “like a mighty army” that has been demobilized. Our medals tell of long forgotten campaigns, and we forget that the struggle goes on. Indeed, our concern for the past often masks our fear of the present and our dread of the future. Perhaps this is the distinctive value of the Church. It forces us to remember that the God who loved the brawling, pagan world of Augustus’ time has continued to express his love through all ages. Beyond the mystery of the Resurrection event is the unfathomable love of God who raised His Son for the worst of all human reasons and the best of all divine causes: reconciliation and renewal! The seer of Patmos wrote that “we love because He first loved us.” Our very being is predicated upon this basic premise. Easter thus serves as a reminder of the fulfilment of Bethlehem’s miracle. From the Cradle to the Cross, from Bethlehem to Golgotha. And from there to the uttermost parts of the earth. PRAYER: Forgive me, Lord, for forgetting you. Let my Easter be a time for renewal. Transform my very life, so that I can truly reflect the love that turned the cross, the sign of shame, into the symbol of your love for me and all mankind. Amen. Charles A. Darocy The Cross Means Peace “Making peace by the blood of his cross.” — Colossians 1:20 If, as Paul says here, Christ’s cross makes peace, then the good news of the cross is precisely what our war-weary world is looking for today. But what peace is there in a cross? Surely the cross is bloddy agony, not peace. It is cold torture, and iron-pierced hands. It is torment, and defeat and death — all this, but not peace. Did not Paul know that? The Romans did. The cross was their electric chair, their gas chamber, their hanging tree. Why then did Paul, looking for a word to describe the meaning of the cross, call it peace? And how did God take an instrument and a moment of torture and make it peace? In two ways, I think. First, the cross means peace for the world. And second, even more directly, the
