“And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you” – Matthew 28: 7
Dr. Clington J Fernando MBBS D. Orth MRCS FRCS M.Ch Orth
Dear friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, May the love and grace of God shall bring you peace and happiness more than ever in your life! Likewise this letter shall find you all in faith and hope to meet our Lord in Glory.
The Lord is doing marvellous things amongst us and I am very happy and thrilled to write to you to share the good news, which you should spread to everyone. As we enter into the Holy week to meditate the sufferings of Christ for our sins, we also prepare ourselves for the everlasting joy of His resurrection, which confirms that we will also be resurrected to live with Him for ever.
The Lord has given the above verse appropriately for us during this time which is to preach the good news to all who are poor in their spirit. It is amazing to tell you how God gave this verse for us. I typed Matthew 16:7 on the Google and got Matthew 28:7. I tried checking it a few times and this was exactly coming first, when I realised God’s plan for us this Easter. I went on to read Matthew 28 fully where I found the verse 7, 10 & 19 gives a clear message three times which is to continue preach the Gospel. It is very important at this particular time where we all face finding and keeping faith very difficult in the society, particularly with the younger generation. This is what we read in Luke 18:8, when the Lord comes again will he find faith on earth!!
Matthew 13:58 says Jesus did not do many miracles in his home town Nazareth because of their lack of faith. This is very true even today as we make things hard for the Lord to do miracles. We often pray without fervour and believe or pray with half heart or do not like to pray for a few people as we do not like them. We think God can not work in this society of today as the situations are not conducive. This isn’t true at all. If it is true we proclaim ourselves that our God is weak, but He isn’t weak. He is a powerful mighty God who makes the weak win, the low to high and the foolish to be clever. Do we not know King David? He killed the Goliath with a sling stone. Mary was a blessed woman who was given a Holy Child by the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth conceived when she was old, so was Sarah, wife of Abraham. Who tied the lion’s mouth in the den when David was thrown in? Let us not only refresh our thoughts on this mightiness of God, but also continue to spread it.
Even today we see these mighty things of God amongst us. We in our many weaknesses never thought God was there nor did we accept or recognize that He is powerful to do miracles. Certainly I was one of them! But you see today, I continue to spend time for God, which I never thought I would! Why? In His grace as He touches us we melt away in His power and Glory, as we start to love Him more and fervently desire to do something for everything He has done in our life. There are many amongst you today like me and would be carrying the candle of Christ’s light just because of the grace He has shown you in your life.
So why does Christ show His Grace to us? Is it because He has no other job or is it because we are Holy. Grace is something we get from Him when we don’t deserve it in our wickedness. However He was gracious to give up his life for us when he himself didn’t have sin in Him. How can a man die if he is not a sinner? So if Christ is sin free how he can die? Only because he took our sins on Him, he died! His saving grace came to us in the Calvary from His death only because He chose (not forced) willingly to take our sins on Him. However as it was not His sin the sting of death couldn’t keep him in for so long and He was resurrected on the third day.
This resurrection of Christ is a testimony of our awaiting life after death for which we are happy to take up a few difficulties, but we will die happily in Him with a lot of hope and belief. In facing these difficulties we might be far from the loved ones, far from our home, might encounter a difficult society where we live in for Christ’s values and even more trouble some when we start to preach Him. It wouldn’t be a tolerant society any more in the days to come for Christ’s teachings, as we are moving quickly towards the period of our Lord’s second coming.
In the name of right, justice and freedom of speech everyone will be defending themselves for all what they do, which is against the Biblical values. It was a time when we recognised that same sex relationships was the reason for HIV (AIDS) infection. Now we are moving in a society where we accept or forced to accept these people in terms of equality. It was a time when in medical college I was taught that these were abnormal perversions but now we seem to accept it as normal. These are values which will never come to terms of true values.
How will a man breast feed his child or hold it in his womb? How will a woman conceive without a man? Ironically we find even churches seem to accept these ideas now and more so even for priests to be like this. They are even forced to leave the church if they can’t accept to these changes! How can this be right? Do we not think what argument they will place before the Lord? Did Job have a winning argument with God despite being a righteous person? We all should be clear here that we all shall live and die for Christ, not for the church, if we want to reign with him forever. We have to cleanse our robes in his red blood to keep it clean, white and pure. This will need extraordinary will power for which we need incessant prayers and intercessions.
Now these are the difficult times we are living with and left to face. This is how the devil had entered the church and the chosen ones, thus bringing seven woes (Matthew 23) to all those people. This is how unknowingly, but carefully the weeds are sowed by the Satan amongst us. Unless we realise it we will be easily cheated by these false values as we hear today. It is time for us to be vigilant with extra care as we see these false teachings, preachers and prophets living amongst us polluting the society. God is not going to forgive them and the judgement on them is going to be even harsher than what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, as He had said. So let us be careful with oil and lamp, not just the lamp to meet our Lord (Matthew 25; 1-13).
The time is very near and coming closer than ever and is going to shut down on all of us as it did during the times of Noah, when people were keen in drinking, marrying and making merry. This is the time we live in too. Before this would happen we have a mission to live in faith and preach the same. How shall we do it? Let us read Deuteronomy 6 to practise it effectively.
This is the same mission we are called into by Christ particularly this Easter time with comfort of His hope and presence closer to us as in Matthew 28: 19-20, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
