Pulpit Messages Christianity and Life

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22931, 27 April 1949, Page 3

Pulpit Messages Christianity and Life

(Contributed by Ministers* Association.) 1 I - —y; f

MUST NOT LOSE FAITH The two men returning to Emmaus at the end of the first Easter day, were a pathetic couple. They had expected so much of the One they had seen crucified. But that tragedy shattered ail their hopes. Their dreams of a new world order vanished.

They were returning home, to their old way of life, reluctantly confessing they had made a profound mistake, in looking for anything better for men to emerge from the life and teaching of the Nazai'ene Prophet. “We had expected it had been he that would have redeemed Israel.

You see, they were confused by the method of Jesus. They could not conceive of anything worthwhile being achieved through their Lord submitting to the cross. The whole thing had been nothing but a tragic disaster. Is not that the mood many of us are in? State of World Today

Wo want to know what God is doing. Look at the state of the world today, after two world wars, to say nothing about 2000 years of Christian teaching. All the high hopes encouraged and cherished in the past have gone by the board.

But tho first Easter experience seen in its right setting should be a corrective for the mood of despondency. For whatever way you look at it. our Lord’s rising from the dead was an epochmaking event. It was the grand turning point in history. That does not mean, of course, that the life of the world was suddenly changed, and that a New Order was established overnight. No. On the contrary, there followed immediately after the resurrection, a period of widespread chaos. Woes befell mankind, as Jesus said they would. Jerusalem itself was sacked. Not many years after the resurrection there were signs on every hand that civilisation was breaking down. People With Hope But at the same time there were people in that period who were sure of God because they had seen the risen Christ. They were the only people who had any hope. They were certain that whatever the prevailing circumstances of human life, God had not forsaken T-lis world. Christ’s persistence through the horrors and evils of Calvary, His triumph over sin and death. His emergence from the tomb, was God's assurance to these people that God was in this world with all its evil, and He was in it to transform if, to bring out 01 the seemingly hopeless situation a message of faith and hope and love. And we, looking back, can see that despite all the evils that marked the years immediately following the resurrection of Jesus. God was working. For when Roman civilisation at last broke up, it was the Christians who took over. They re-ordered the life of society, lifting it to such a level as it never before had attained.

So that if Easter has any message for us in this late day it is this, we must not lose faith. We must not allow world events to cheat us of our belief that this is still God’s world, that He rules over it to the end that nothing can finally defeat His purpose.