Resurrection
The Lord still communicates with us even in the most
obscuring situation of our lives. Even in difficult moments, the Lord is still
with us. We are part of him being oil lamps of Holy Ghost indwelling. Citing
for example the experience of Jonah, even in the bottom of the sea, God still
conveys to him what is His will to Jonah’s life. We should discern the will of
God for even the only begotten Son Jesus had been subjected to the will of the
Father. Jesus fasted and prayed, and like us, was tempted though he did not
give in to the Devil’s enticements but manages to be tenacious and was firm to
his mission that is the salvation of man.
It was not actually the length of fasting that Jesus was
steadfast and strong against the luring enemy, but that he was honed and was
prepared for the coming delegation of duties to him by the Father. In Noah’s
time, there was cleansing as it rained for forty days. Moses however
communicated with God by the burning bush for 40 days. Jonah was in 40 days of
preparation for his mission. Combining everything, the common denominator is
that they all prayed.
In the Paschal Mystery, there was suffering, death and
resurrection of our Lord Jesus, in the same way that we must repent, and must
be cleansed by dying to our sins, for us to receive relief as we obtain
healing, with this episode moreover occurring as our sins are forgiven, knowing
well from our hearts that we are shaped as a new being. We can descry that
based from these that are mentioned, it is as if it was arranged that in Acts
2:38 which speaks about repentance, baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and
infilling of the Holy Spirit, we visualize death, burial and resurrection as we
after rigid compunction, ought to bury our sins, receive forgiveness, and
become a new person.
In John 13:1, “Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus
knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his
own in the world and he loved them to the end.” If we put this in the context
of dying, he by giving his life loves in perfect dimension even he knew that he
was to be sacrificed and would be assimilated to be like a lamb in slaughter.
He accepts being in paroxysm lured whipped and tortured by the Jews whom he considers
his friends.
Christ died for us that we may obtain salvation and no one
can equal the sacrifice he offers being compelled to accede to the will of his
Father. Salvation through the death of the Son of God is the deliverance
offered to us by God himself. In 1 John 3:16, the following was asserted, “The
way we came to know love was that He laid down his life for us; so we ought to
lay down our lives for our brothers.” Somehow God has this reminder for us in 1
John 3:17-18, “If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and
refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? Children, let us
love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”
“Christ’s death and resurrection will be useless unless
persons will accept that gift where he offered his life two thousand years
ago,” says an eloquent priest who was invited speaker in a Charismatic prayer
meeting. He somehow disclosed that to him we repeatedly celebrate the Paschal
mystery of Christ because until now many of us believers cannot accept the gift
of salvation. I understand from his talk that, unless man in the moment desired
in his human life, with him gifted of affection, offers himself more so his
heart or life, by accepting the gift of God which is the death of Jesus for the
redemption of our sins as we men need to die from our sins that these may be
effaced, until now in haste man makes himself blind, dead, and mute. No wonder
crimes, distrust and cheating continue to accelerate. What Christian mind do we
have being coiled to our vices and attachments?
Death of Christ will continue to be ineffectual in purpose
if we will not accept the challenge to step out from our dark places as we are
confined to our own arrogance. Every time we bequeath from our houses and
desert prayer meeting places, we begin to see beggars, people present in
streets, and those who are in vehicles seemingly racing, old and young alike
for whom Christ died. We view in Television and listen to radios situational
that makes us believe that the love of man had waxed cold because he abandons
God who is his first love. Likewise, for Christ’s death to be effectual to us,
we should open our hearts, our hands to the gift of God who is Himself in the
form of the only begotten Son, Jesus Christ who is our Lord.
We should direct our selves to welcome changes in
attitudes and evaluate the kind of lives or say lifestyles that we have. We
should purge our own hardness of hearts and listen to the still small voice who
speaks in our inner selves with Him knowing well that we are loved as it is him
who loves his own in the world and these whom he loves are given to him by the
Father. We should embrace our parents and heed to their advices even if the
devil tempting speaks to us that we being in the young generation should be
boastful of our own choices.
We need to be humble enough to be subjected or are
compelled to submit that through correcting our vices, we can obtain
resurrection and be at home with our new selves.
- Jyotisman Nearu Upendra
