Easter and the relevance of the gospel message
Last Friday many Jamaicans gathered in churches to reflect on the passion and death of Jesus Christ. For many, the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross have not lost their significance. Properly evaluated, they present a platform not just for meditation, but for reflection on one’s life and the direction in which it is going. After all, they are the last words of a dying man to us, and not just any ordinary person, but the acknowledged Son of God, Messiah and Saviour of the world.
Easter Sunday was no different, as people poured into the churches. Those who had not been to church for the longest while considered it a duty to be there on Easter Day. Certainly, in Jamaica, most children get an exposure to religious faith; even if your parent or grandparent had to drag you screaming to church, you had to be there. As one gets older and the demands of the world press in, there is a tendency to abandon this faith, but it is hard to throw it off altogether, for somehow it has been ingrained in us and — in a real, though not often obvious sense — has become part of the fabric of our lives.
But churches have become increasingly secularised in their attempt to accommodate the demands of the world. So, one can well understand the aversion that many have developed, especially to the institutional church. What people detest is not so much the gospel which has its own eternal truth, intrinsic value and relevance despite the Church, but the way in which the Church operates often as a power centre; indulging a kind of hypocrisy that many have found detestable.
This has become increasingly so in the age of the Internet in which the search for truth can occur with the click of a mouse or the tapping of one’s fingers on a smart device. The Internet, and the independence it breeds, has led many to believe increasingly in the irrelevance of God to their lives.
But what seems apparent is that in a post-post-modernistic world governed by the Internet, the world has become increasingly fragmented. Rootlessness, loneliness, rugged individualism, malevolent violence, hunger in an age of plenty, and emptiness in an age of runaway addiction to addictive substances, make strong arguments for a message of love and justice and the power of transcendence. In a fragmented world lurching from one crisis to the next, the cross of Christ casts a shadow that cannot be ignored. His invitation to the burdened and distressed to come and find their rest in Him is still supremely relevant to how we seek to live our lives.
What kind of message does the gospel of Jesus Christ have for that kind of world? What should the adherents of Christianity believe in a world that has proclaimed the death of Christianity; that is increasingly refusing to accept the validity of Christianity and any religion for that matter; and which, for all intents and purposes, has become irrelevant to their dreams and expectations?
These are questions that must be answered, and one should not be fooled into believing that the answers can be easily arrived at. The Church must continue to insist on the validity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of what he accomplished on the cross, and now made certain in his resurrection from the dead. The imperatives of the love ethic and social justice as he communicated it by words and actions; his insistence on the proper use of money and of the recognition of the intrinsic value of every human being; and his call to his followers to active discipleship, have not lost the urgency they had for the first followers of Jesus.
Those who may want to celebrate the dethronement of God or who would be quick to sing or be a pall-bearer at his funeral would be cautioned as to their intentions. The truth is that the new-found freedom that they believe they now have by worshipping at the feet of the new Moloch of technology may be the very thing that brings them into a new kind of bondage. But the good news is that the gospel of Jesus Christ offers release even from this kind of bondage.
Whatever one may think about the Christian God or the Christian understanding of God; however one may argue for a post-Christian world, there will always be the urgent longing for personal peace that issues into purposeful and meaningful living. The Christian way, the way of the cross and the one who died on it, and the power of his resurrection becoming real to how we live, still provide meaningful ways to achieve these. Indeed, Jesus’s claim to be the way, the truth and the life satisfies that question. I hope you had a quiet, restful and fulfilling Easter holiday.
Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Send comments to the Observer or stead6655@aol.com.