The resurrection of Christ according to St Paul gives meaning to the concept of Christianity. If there was no resurrection, then Christianity would have been one charade enacted perhaps for entertainment, bearing little or no significance. To marks the fulfillment of man’s redemption. Humanity is salvaged and fully restored to peace with its author. The resurrection implies re-creation and re-make from the tainted to the sparkling. With Christ we are new beings, renewed to life leaving our old self behind! The resurrection came as a green light at the end of a tunnel. It came as a crown for a bloody cross; garland of flowers for a journey of thorns and handsome reward for a good fight. The resurrection is hope activated! It is love manifested and faith accomplished. It was salvation by the whisker; that those doomed to die, condemned to damnation now has effrontery to grin! Those living in darkness brother Isaiah foretold have seen a great light! Christ is our light; perfect reason for the “exultet”!
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The first crucial lesson of the resurrection is to understand and embrace the way of cross! Away from me now all you preachers of glitz, depart from me or you lone seers of fortune, for in the resurrection of the master I see a lesson rich; the death of a plant means no permanence but transition. The resurrection affords humanity the courage to shoulder the cross! The vital sacrifice of Good Friday obviously led to the peculiar crown of Easter. Recently I took up an argument with a shallow-minded atheist friend of man who wants to gain cheap popularity by acting sounding aloof! He opined that Christ at some point began to dodge his passion, and only took the betrayal of Judas to fish him out! Like a Jihadist I nearly became angry, but knowing who is in discourse I couldn’t help the laughter! God who volunteered, relinquished his majesty, took flesh knowingly, existed in poverty, went round doing good, foretold of his death, willing went to Jerusalem where he knew he will die, shunning ploys by his apostle to deviate his focus on the mission….now you tell me he dodged? More laughter please!
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The thrust of my message however is not on cheap follies of a funny man, but on the essence of hope made visible through the resurrection! The price paid was awesome. We were on death row condemned without hope. A man’ kingly but meek decided to take the fall for the rest of us ensuring we made it across. I can feel how the apostles must have felt. Despite the amount of faith, humans we are there often comes doubt. They lost it after he died, they really didn’t process the prophecy nor did they believe. But the resurrection restored their hopes; it gave them renewed impetus to believe and convinced them that all was not lost.
My message goes out to the rest of Nigerians. Our Good Friday seems endless. Just when you think this episode is over another set in. Just when you think that we are making a new leap to salvation our lights seems darkened afresh. Our lives continue to know all kinds of insecurities- from terrorists, from armed robbers, kidnappers, swindlers, manipulators and above all insensitive government with thieving proclivities. There seems to be no respite at hand. The herds-men, the hench-men, the hard-men, the men-men; all men all gunning for our souls; for pieces of our flesh. As a youth often to war becomes desirable, but deep down we realize that a street flow of blood does none no good. The hopelessness is often irksome seeing the wards and relatives of the upper class adorned to the brim. These opportunities, these priviledges were meant for all to benefit after fair tussle in equal arena. But fairness is vice in a nation that enthrones evil as virtue. The people have seen through the lies. The deception now is stale news. The heightened forex, the endless queue to purchase (not dashed) what nature freely bestowed upon all; all these are realities of our Good Friday as Nigerians.
Call me your new prophet, Call me your Elijah, I am your Isaiah, your Ezekiel, your Jeremiah, your Bob Marley! Call me your Hosea, your Samuel, your Shamgar, Othniel! See your Amos in me, your Malachy, your Zachariah! I see the future clearer than the Pope and Bishops combine! I see farther than TB Joshua, than Adeboye, than Oyedepo. I see that hidden from Oyakhilome, Suleiman, Oritsejafor, Ukpai, Okonkwo etec! I am very much certain we shall rise! I am not talking in parables, I am not coming in from the cold, I am right in the face of the battle telling you that we shall rise! How we shall rise is obvious. The ship of our resurrection has long set sail. We are coming to upset the system, to shake the foundation, to teach lessons and unbundle talents. We are going to cause a stir from the age-long shackled but gifted mind. We are about pulling the rug under the feet of the oppressors! The revolution is under way.
The change may not leave us one. It may not see us a united diverse nation. It may scatter and spread us into many nations, but surely it will leave us better off. The revolution shall be our resurrection. I see an oasis springing; not for the docile, but to all who key in into the revolution. I speak not as some clean suit or robe man of God. I speak as a man with ancestors on whose shoulders nations shall be raised. I speak as a man with father of repute, with mother of discipline and culture of ubuntu! I fear no backlash, I bother less about dissenters, I am here to push the moving, to initiate a quicker course of action and to confound more our detractors!
So throw up your hands in the air, withdraw some cash if you haven’t, cook and eat rich according to your capacity, look regal and kingly for like Christ we are all rising for sure!
Hallelujah……………………………………………………………………………………………..
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