Fraternity-Testvériség, 1977 (55. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
1977-01-01 / 1. szám
DR. ZOLTÁN BEKY: Í>e tó Eisen Easter is the celebration of resurrection and a new life. At the Golgotha on Good Friday when our sins and depravation led to the crucifixion and death of the Son of God, it had looked like everything were lost. But on the morn of the third day, at the dawn of Easter, He had triumphed over human evil and death: He has risen indeed! The reality and truth of resurrection forms the only rocklike foundation of our faith, life and church. Our creed remains: He is risen indeed! His resurrection is the proof of the truthfulness of God’s promises. The promised Saviour had come to us and by his suffering and by his death on the cross he had saved mankind from sin, death and damnation and sealed all these sacrifices by his triumphant return from death. It is not correct that the resurrection was alleged by His disciples only. It was not the child of their hope and imagination. The most terrifying lesson of the Easter gospel is that the disciples did not expect the resurrection — they fled into different directions from the foot of the Cross. The holy women, too, they did not go to the sepulchre on Easter morning in order to witness the resurrection but to embalm the dead body of Jesus. Even signs were not sufficient. Neither the removed stone nor the missing gourds had any meaning to them and failed to remind them of the prediction of the Saviour that He will rise on the third day again. Their hearts were depressed, filled with fear and anxiety until they have seen the empty grave and until they heard the angelic message: Why are you looking for the living among the dead? This message gives unestimable courage and strength to us Christians of the modern Twentieth Century who are so often filled with doubts and the will to compromise. Jesus lives! Christ is risen! The Church lives! They live even in the age of atheism and faithlessness. He dil not lose us. And He will never lose us! The disciples, ministers and priests may doubt, they may even defect. The risen Lord will come to renew his church, and to gather his dispersed people. It is also a lie, (only too often repeated) that the church, as an institution, has no future. Accordiny to this interpretation, Christianity finished its historical destiny, and only its petrified institutions survive and will soon become extinct. Easter is our evidence which teaches us that only a church which does not keep the faith, has no future. Only a church which doubts the living, risen Christ can perish. The Lord of the church, Christ lives and triumphed over death and they who believe in Him will never die, but will live forever. We, Hungarian Christians, find a double consolation in our faith in Easter. God will never allow His Hungarian people to die and perish. As long as there remain some saints in whose heart the risen Christ continues to live despite the darkness, hopelessness and temptations of our Satanic age: victory, survival and a better future beckons to us at the Eastern morn in the Resurrection of Christ. We must live according to this faith, and keep renewing and strengthening it in ourselves. In this faith we must embrace all Hungarian brethren in whose heart lives Christ and confess the Creed of the Resurrection. A miraculous result of the historical catastrophies, of the dispersion of our people and the concommitant suffering is: that both in Hungary and abroad Hungarian Christians despite denominational differences have found one another. We have realized the truth that in these crises we must not struggle against one another, but fight together and for one another against atheism, for the living Christ and His Gospel. It means that we must live for one another and we must become witnesses for Christ. For there is no other way than Jesus Christ who said “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” FRATERNITY Official Organ of The Hungarian Reformed Fed. of America Edited by Officers of the Federation Published quarterly — four times a year. Subscription for non-members in U.S.A. and Canada $2, elsewhere $3 a year. Office of Publication: Bethlen Press, Inc., Ligonier, Pa. 15658 POSTMASTER—Send Form 3579 to Editorial Office: 3216 New Mexico Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016. Telephone: (202) 244-7555. Editorial Committee: Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor— Rt. Rev. Dr. Zoltán Beky, President Associate Editors— Rt. Rev. Arpad L. George, Secretary; László L. Eszenyi, Controller; Paul St. Miklossy, Treasurer. Second Class Postage Paid at the Post Office in Ligonier, Pa. 15658. 2
