Jesus is Risen

Binhi sang Pagtuo

April 5, 2010

Dear Centralians and Friends,

Greetings from Zamboanga del Norte!*

Yesterday, the Christian Church celebrated Easter Sunday in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus.

In defense of the resurrection of Jesus, former British Chief Justice lord Darling said: “There exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world would fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.”

The recent book of Lee Strobel “The Case for Christ” and its subsequent documentary film, report that even though there is overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, a lot of people are still not convinced that Jesus rose from the dead, and the number of skeptics is climbing up.

Matthew 28:11-15 narrates to us a story that some of the guards of the tomb when to the chief priests and reported to them what happened. Consequently, the chief priests and the elders gathered to discuss the report and devised a plan. They gave money to the soldiers and told them to spread the news that the disciples of Jesus came during the night and stole the body. And this lie was consistently circulated by the religious leaders of that time.

This story gives us some reasons that although the resurrection really happened, the rumors and lies spread by the Jewish leaders are still being spread in our society by modern day Chief Priests, Elders and Soldiers.

We are sometimes like those Chief Priests. They are the kind of people who are only concerned about their position in society. We are embarrassed to let other people know that we are Christians. We think that it will degrade our position in the society if we practice our being a Christian openly. Because of this, we help perpetuate the lie that Jesus did not rise from the dead because the effect of his resurrection cannot be seen in our lives.

We are sometimes like those elders. They are the kind of people who forsake the plan of God and instead devised devious plans to benefit our own self-interests, and we do it by hook or by crook. In the case of the Elders in the story, they resulted to bribery.

We are sometimes like those soldiers who took the bribe. They followed the orders of the Elders without objection. We oftentimes follow orders like blind people even if the orders are dead wrong. We have failed to question what is happening around us.

If you have seen yourself as a modern day Chief Priests, Elders or Soldiers, it is time for us to purge this kind of personalities or attitudes. Let us be like the women who when they received the news from the angel that Jesus is alive, they were filled with joy and hurried to tell the good news.

May God bless us all!

Sincerely,

Pastor Francis Neil G. Jalando-on

Assistant Chaplain

*I’m currently in Mindanao attending the CBMA Western Mindanao Chapter Assembly. I delivered the Biblico-Theological Reflection just this morning, and tomorrow I’ll be preaching in their Closing Celebration.