The Tribune

By Rev Canon S Sebastian Campbell

THIS is the day the church celebrates the feast of Christ’s resurrection, of which Easter is the oldest and greatest feast in the church. It pays to remember that every Sunday is a “Little Easter”, since every Sunday is a “feast of the resurrection.” From New Testament times Sunday is replaced Saturday as a day of worship; it was on a Sunday that our new life in Christ begun.

The good news of Easter is found in its contradiction, death is the passage to life; early believers ventured into the cemetery in search of life. What a contradiction? It is precisely in our contradictions we can experience new life and share the good news. Where do we seek resurrection/new life this Easter? Let us dare venture into ten areas:

1. Preteen and teen pregnancy. That society would exact justice from those older men who are guilty of such grave an offence. I suggest castration and to the least corporal punishment.
2. That society gives hope to approximately 1,000 teenage girls “kicked out” of school annually because of pregnancy. We must not allow their indiscretion to shorten their formal education. The church must lead in keeping hope alive.
3. The many young males who stumble into gangster living. Can we preempt this distinction? Question, “How many of us sacrifice in making intentional sustained programmes/solutions available?” How many men’s groups are sponsoring a meaningful outreach to our boys? Can we?
4. Our men’s groups invest time, teach a trade, sponsor a uniform organisation and impart marketable skills in a coordinated system to our boys.
5. Broken families. Do we invest in fellowship and spiritual currency to keep them together?
6. Divorce courts can be sidestepped or “hell-holes” of marriage circumvented if unevenly yoked persons are honest with this reality before marriage. Counsellors can fearlessly steer lustful affairs or infatuated desperadoes away from the altar.
7. Those in squalor. Many, far too many, Bahamians are living in conditions below human dignity, in the filth of slums. It’s even more tragic in knowing that the slum is being born into our children and therefore much of our social problems arise. People act the way they are treated. Do we need to divest more form the rich to rescue the poor?
8. The TV culture must be zapped. It’s the baby-sitter and the only spokesperson in many homes. We can breathe new life into each other by socialising; we can get to know one another if we talk, chat, relate stories, play games together etc, while simultaneously giving the TV the occasional break.
9. Fatherless homes. Pray that more Bahamian mothers will give fathers – real fathers, fathers in residence – to their children. Bahamians confuse sperm donors with fatherhood all too often.
10. Accepting responsibility. For government and its supporters, especially writers, to stop exonerating their shortcomings in light of the shortcomings of the former administration.
11. To lick illiteracy with an educational system that waits upon and pushes forward slow learners so as to guarantee every Bahamian is able to both read and write.

Resurrection must be real and practical; let’s breathe life into the “dead bones” of society and our lives. Let us use this Easter to begin to experience a new joy and a renewal of life; daily bringing sense out of the contradictions life throws to us. We can breathe life into these dry bones.
“He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me and tells me I’m His own….. You ask me how I know He lives….He lives within my heart!”

What a testimony!