Finding new life in the Resurrection of Jesus
HOW CONSOLING for us to have hope for new life because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! In view of the threat posed by the highly contagious COVID-19 coronavirus and the accompanying measures imposed to restrict the spread of the contagious virus, there is anxiety, fear, distress, bravado, insensitivity, nonchalance, carelessness, cautiousness, heightened sense of responsibility that has characterised our varied responses. No doubt, normal existence is disrupted. The question: for how long will this disruption continue, and how long will it take for us to restore normality?
The Lenten season, paradoxically, provided for combining our works of penance to seek deliverance from the tragedy of COVID19. Hopefully, a sufficient amount of us did our Lenten works, to renew and deepen the spirituality of our lives in relation to God and our neighbours. The health disaster occasioned by COVID19 should have inspired us to escalate our works of penance, consistent with the customary action adapted by the people of the Bible when struck by disaster. Joel 1:13, “Priests, put on sackcloth and lament! You ministers of the altar, wail! Come here, lie in sackcloth all night long, you ministers of my God!”
Providentially, we are now entering the Easter season, the time celebrating the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But, the new life of the Resurrection is merited only by genuine works of penance: “If we have been joined to Him by dying a death like His, so we shall be by a resurrection
like His; realising that our former self was crucified with Him, so that the self which belonged to sin should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin.” (Roman 6:5-6)
In Jamaica we have a saying: ‘Tek sleep mark death!’ And ‘If yuh want good, nose have fi run!’ This is a realism to contemplate at this time, for as Jesus says in Luke 13:4, “those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell, killing them all, do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.’ Jesus informs (John 12:24): “In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.”
Note that the new life made possible by Jesus’ Resurrection is preceded by suffering and dying. Our penance is the doorway to experience this new life Jesus offers.
If any of us have not yet ventured on the way of new life by acknowledging and repenting of sin and evil, the possibility for new life remains. Our God chooses to show mercy rather than anger, awaiting our return to Him, therefore, weep for the evils accommodated and confess sin so as to merit the grace of new life in Jesus Christ!