Easter assures hope, new life

CHRISTIANS all over the world will on Sunday mark this year’s Easter celebration. Easter is one of the most important feasts of the Christian faith, bringing hopes to every soul.

  In an online interview with National Light, one of the Roman Catholic Clergies in Awka, Rev Fr JohnBosco O. Nkanyimmuo spoke on what the term is all about and its significance.

  He described Easter as “Christ’s Paschal Mystery; that is, suffering, death and resurrection on the third day”.

  According to him, each of the above terms is very deep in its significance because Christ’s Last Supper serving as a necessary introduction to the above, culminates in what is known as the Paschal Triduum; three days leading to the glory of the resurrection. In other words, Easter is hope assured, faith reinvigorated and death destroyed. When the Jews, the scribes and the Pharisees, amidst others as the key enemies of Jesus thought that all is gone for Jesus, by their final blow of crucifixion and death, came the breaking news: “He has risen from the dead”.

  “This, they fought tooth and nail to bury and prevent from spreading, but all to no avail. This simply points to the ultimate fact that where the so called man’s power ends, divine power triumphs to testify that both man and his wisdom or authority are all gratuitous creation of God who has made him the king of all creatures. Man’s misuse and abuse of this authority often leads to his eternal damnation, confusion and self-destruction.

  “Thus, Easter celebrates the fact that Jesus is the ultimate being of all beings of the philosopher and the first born of all creations of the scriptures; that we only participate in his divine mandate. By this very fact, Christians are called to live in hope and above all, to hope against hope”.

  Fr Nkanyimmuo noted that without hope, no common man can survive in Nigeria as a theatre of manipulations and lies.

  Reflecting on the last general elections, he further said it leaves much to be desired when one thinks of the Nigerian situation. “In a word, Christ’s resurrection reassures us that at the end of every tunnel is the light. St Paul concludes that this hope does not disappoint us (Rom 5, 5). He urged that Christians should be faithful and hopeful as we celebrate Easter in joy”.

  Speaking on its significance, Fr JohnBosco detailed that Easter celebration is not just about  what one zealous young man of Nazareth, Jesus Christ did in his remote village about 2000 years ago but about “my life yesterday, today and tomorrow or in other words, about my ugly past, my persevering present and my bright future. In the other hand, “it aptly depicts bringing my past years of life represented by the preparatory 40 days journey of Lent with Christ; crucifying its weaknesses and challenges in the death of Christ on the cross on Good Friday; regenerating with our death to sin with Christ in baptism or renewal of baptism in Easter Vigil Mass and ultimately journeying with the gospel of resurrection and salvation with the resurrected Christ in newness of life with its joys and hopes”.

  Fr Nkanyimmuo pointed out, “we are called to entrust our past to God, pursue the present in God’s grace and fill the future with lives that can fetch us salvation which is what Christ our brother has brought for us in the resurrection of the dead. Easter reassures us that if we repent like the good thief, Dismus, justly condemned to die with Christ on the cross; that Christ will not only remember us in Paradise but restore us to the joy of salvation of Psalm 50 verse 1.

  “In a word, in Easter, every sinner is faced with the actualisation of a bright future and every righteous one, a joyous thanksgiving of a redeemed past”, he concluded.