Reflecting on a transformation at Easter
For Wagdi Iskander, his story has been a journey from hate to love — and one he most likely will reflect on this Easter Sunday.
He grew up in Sudan in a tribal Bedouin community — with a strong religious Muslim influence.
As a youngster in boarding school, so much of what he was told was beyond his understanding.
“There was one thing, however, that they talked about that would completely change my heart and lead me to a place of hatred, fear and extremely bad decisions for my life,” says Iskander, director of the Alhayat training centre in Alberta and formerly pastor of the Arabic Christian Church of Calgary.
“They talked about a Christian as the ‘firewood of hell.’ Their exact words were ‘to burn them before they burn us.’ We were to hate them and hurt them before they hurt us. . . . Although a Muslim school, there were a small number of Christian students who found themselves in a hostile environment with nowhere else to go for their education. This is where I found a place for my hatred to escape and sadly, these students became the outlet for all the negative that had been taught to me about Christians. My goal was to make their life miserable and I found many ways to do that.”
Iskander says he was expelled from eight schools between elementary and high school because he had become so violent.
His life turned around when a Christian he had beaten in university talked about his faith again outside of the university.
“This time, when he spoke of forgiveness, I was truly interested,” Iskander says.
“I started to see God guiding my steps in the next months, but the most powerful was bringing me to a woman with an unshakable faith and a story that brought me to my knees to accept Jesus into my heart. She became a Christian as a teenager and, when the tribe found out, they attempted to burn her to death. She was rescued by a Christian doctor visiting the tribe and survived with severe damage to her legs. When I met her and saw the light of Jesus in her and then she pulled the blanket covering her legs to show me, I can only try to explain by saying that God spoke to my heart at that moment.
“As soon as my family found out I was a Christian, I was arrested, severely beaten and found myself in front of a judge with two other converts. We were given the chance to be set free by renouncing Christianity and embracing Islam. In my weakened state, I wanted to stand and give in, but my strong brothers beside me would not let me. They prayed we would somehow be in the same cell and that is where God put us so I could experience my first Bible study. We were sentenced to be executed, one of us each Friday, with myself the last. I watched those two Fridays as my brave brothers in Christ left this earth to the arms of Jesus.”
On Feb. 8, 1985, the day he was to be executed, Iskander woke up to the sound of the city being bombed by Libya.
In the chaos, he found himself free and “run- ning to the elderly woman whose bravery in being burned for belief in Jesus and surviving had been the ultimate moment that brought me to Christ.” She became his mother. Today, Easter Sunday, Iskander will once again reflect on his dramatic Christian journey.
Easter is a time many people convert to the Christian faith.
Rev. Fred Henry, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary, says the resurrection of Christ is the basis of the Christian faith.
“It is the greatest of the miracles, proving that Jesus is God,” Henry says. “That is why St. Paul writes: ‘If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain; and your faith is in vain’. ‘Jesus is Lord, he is risen’ was the central theme of the kerygma — or preaching — of the apostles because Jesus prophesied it as a sign of his divinity: ‘Tear down this temple and in three days I will build it again.’ The founder of no other religion has an empty tomb as Jesus has.
“Easter is the guarantee of our own resurrection. Jesus assured Martha at the tomb of Lazarus: ‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will live even though he dies.’
“Easter is a feast which gives us hope and encour- agement in this world of pain, sorrows and tears. It reminds us that life is worth living. It is our belief in the real presence of the risen Jesus that gives meaning to our personal as well as our communal prayer, strength to fight against temptations and freedom from unnecessary worries and fears.”
Henry says Easter gives people the joyful message that we are a “resurrection people.” This means that we are not supposed to lie buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits, dangerous addictions, despair, discouragement or doubts.
“Instead, we are expected to live a joyful and peaceful life, constantly experiencing the real presence of the resurrected Lord in all the events of our lives and amid the boredom, suffering, pain and tensions of our day-to-day life,” adds Henry.
John Pentland, pastor at Hillhurst United Church, says Easter isn’t just a celebration of something that happened long ago. It celebrates Easter moments today. “In the Easter story we catch the truth of God’s transforming Spirit,” Pentland says. “All of these moments remind us that God, made known in Jesus, has the last word, and that word is life.”