Easter is the time when we commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is our Messiah and Saviour. Jesus Christ was a great religious figure, who walked the earth more than 2000 years ago. He was prominent during his stay on earth because of the many miracles He performed and His revolutionary religious teachings, which have had a great influence on the human race, over the years.
Though He was born of lowly-parentage, His father being a poor carpenter; and mother, virgin, He achieved greatness through his performance of uncommon deeds and espousal of religious teachings, which were premised on the themes of love and human beings’ inheritance of God’s kingdom. Jesus Christ, who was part divine, and part human, lived for mere 33 years. And He was part of the triune God.
During His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ healed people, who had infirmities, resurrected dead people, fed a multitude of people with five loaves of bread and two fish(es), walked on the sea, and calmed tempestuous seas. The people marveled at the great miracles, which He performed. And with the passage of time, he had 12 disciples.
However, Jesus Christ’s revolutionary teachings and preachings which had the potentialities of upturning the moral and political order of the day in Israel didn’t sit well with the Jewish rulers at that time. Consequently, His preachings and teachings set Him on a collision course with the Jewish rulers. He was arrested and put to trial for allegedly proclaiming Himself the king of the Jews.
And He was found guilty of the charges they leveled against Him. So He was impaled on the cross and crucified between two robbers, one of whom was named Barabbas. Incredibly, and ironically, too, the people watching the spectacle of His crucifixion demanded that Barabbas, a robber, be released for them, and not Jesus Christ.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was predicted by Jesus Christ Himself when He talked about pulling down the synagogue and re-building it within three days. Though He had premonition about His own death, He did nothing to prevent it from happening in order that the scriptures would be fulfilled. Jesus Christ died on good Friday and resurrected on Easter Sunday, which was the third day of His death.
Jesus Christ died that we may live, as it’s written in the Bible. And He paid the sacrificial price for our sins by accepting to die for the remission of our sins. We should not forget that we inherited the sins of our forebears, Adam and Eve. But Jesus Christ became the ransom for our sins. He died on the cross so that we may live.
So today, if we exercise our faith in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, we shall be able to surmount our problems. And death shall have no powers over us. Because, even though we are dead, we shall still live. And we shall enter the kingdom of God upon our demise if we had obeyed God’s commands and lived according to His sovereign will.
However, it is saddening that today’s christians do not set store by the teachings of Jesus Christ, which are in the synoptic gospels of the holy Bible. Our deeds and utterances do not portray us as christians or followers of Jesus Christ, anymore. Ironically, the violators of Jesus Christ’s precepts and commands are the same people, who do make out that they are followers of Jesus Christ.
The Easter period offers us the opportunity to reconnect to God, the only true source of life, and the ultimate reality to which we will return when we die. Therefore, we should re-dedicate ourselves to the service of God and obey God’s commands in order that we may enter God’s kingdom when we die. And if we live in accordance with God’s will and obey His commandments, the earth will be an oasis of peace.
So as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I exhort everybody to exercise faith in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, who is the incarnation of God’s word, and the only son of God, who chose to become the ransom for our sins. We should remember that we inherited our sins from our first parents, Adam and Eve.
I wish you a happy Easter celebration.
Chiedu Uche Okoye,
Uruowulu-Obosi
Anambra State
