As Lent comes to a close and Easter Sunday draws near, it is important to fully consider the implications and meaning behind the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, said a retired judge and seminary president.
“As we come to this beautiful day we call Easter, somehow, we know that it is different this year. Something has changed in the psyche of our culture, and we just do not know what to make of it,” said Judge Phil Ginn.
The former senior residential superior court judge for the 24th Judicial District of North Carolina, Ginn is now president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Easter, said Ginn, shows Christians that “the dark shadows of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday show more clearly the brightness of that first resurrection morning.”
“As difficult as it may be, perhaps we need to experience in our own lives that gray dawn of the awful middle day of Saturday when the Son of God, reduced to a human corpse, lay silent in the grave,” he said.
At this, the “precise lowest point in the history of humanity,” God’s plan for salvation came into fruition with Christ’s victory over the grave, said Ginn.
“In celebrating Easter with all the depth of its meaning, we proclaim that we, as Christians, believe that our Savior was crucified, buried, and rose again.”
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But, said Ginn, “do we really believe, or is it some weak-minded lip service to a long-told fable?”
The crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of Jesus Christ are “two of the most documented events in the history of the world,” he said.
“There is a greater certainty that these two high and holy events occurred than most of the other history we take for granted as being true,” said Ginn.
Yet the present culture and society has led people to doubt whether the stories in the gospel are historically accurate, he noted.
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“The historicity of our faith is sure, but we find ourselves in the malaise of our misguided expectations and our false hope in a fading human culture,” he said.
For all those feeling doubts, Ginn suggested turning to Luke’s Gospel.
“‘Now when these things begin to take place, then look up and raise your heads, because the time of your redemption is drawing near,'” said Ginn, quoting Luke 21:28.
“If the crucifixion and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior are real in your life today, then lift up your head because your salvation is at hand,” said Ginn.
No matter a person’s existing circumstances, “our victory is assured regardless.”
“In all of its ugliness, the cross of Calvary shouts in the most emphatic terms possible that Jesus Christ is the only way, the only truth, and the only life — and the empty tomb is the proof,” he said.
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