It’s Everything!

Easter 2020

My Dear Friend in Christ:

I do love the Easter season, without doubt because I never weary of sharing the wonder of this event. An event that is the very foundation of our faith, for if it were not for the resurrection of Jesus, if He had never left that tomb, if He was never seen alive by those closest to Him, there simply would be no Christianity.   That is the pure and simple truth. If there were no Easter, we most likely would not even be here. And we would not be celebrating all that our faith has brought to this world, to our civilization, and to our lives.

The primary effect of the resurrection is that it inaugurated what continues to be the most vibrant, inclusive, uplifting, and life-changing movement the world will ever see. It is also a faith that has brought more advancements and improvements to mankind than any other group or belief system in history.   Not to mentioned how it has aided, encouraged, and provided hope to untold billions of lives. Its influence extends far beyond those that have embraced this faith we call Christianity, and it still continues to altered and force changes in every non-Christian culture and society on earth.

This is “folly,”[1] to use Paul’s word, but let’s imagine for a moment our world without the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   With the fall of the Roman Empire to the Barbarians there would have been no Christianity to preserve a semblance of civilization. There would then have been no Renaissance, and then obviously no Reformation for that matter. The Barbarians would never have been civilized by Christianity, because it wouldn’t be there. Islam would have swept away any residue of Western Civilization, for there would be no Christianity to stop it. Although one could make a case that Islam would never had arisen, and various forms of paganism would be the only religion. Science as we know it would never have arisen, for it only arose in Christian Europe, not in Islam or China. Without this Christian desire to understand our world, discovering all that is possible, there would have been no voyages of discovery, or the great inventions. Thus the world would never have known the improvements that Christianity would bring as it explored the world. For in the effort to bring the gospel to “the end of the earth,” Christianity also brought an end to cannibalism, child sacrifices, ritual prostitution, legal slavery, and has established hospitals, removed the scourge of leprosy, provided sanitariums, and all the other advancements in medicine. All of the best things of our world owe their beginnings to Christian efforts.

Of course, this is “folly,” for without doubt the very rise of Christianity is in God’s providence. This was in the mind of God from before the foundations of the world. The “Logos” becoming flesh is not accidental but purposeful. The ministry of Jesus and Calvary “was according to the eternal purpose which He (God) has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph.3:11). None of this just happened it was all God’s doing. This was “not a wisdom of this age…(but) a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:6-8).

If they had known? These “rulers of this age” would not have crucified our Lord. Meaning there would have been no redemption, no resurrection, and thus none of the power, glory, richness, and wonder of our faith would have occurred. We would remain in our sins, and living largely in squalor. People would still be worshipping oak trees, fallen meteorites, or volcanoes, sacrificing children to secure a good harvest, slaughtering thousands to gain an imagined deity’s blessings, and other “rituals” too disgusting to mention.

Instead in the foreknowledge of God He sent His Son, the only begotten, that through Him all the world has the opportunity to believe in Him, and have life ever lasting. This is all because He is risen. We as result are so blessed, and we know He will bring about His complete purpose in history, our nations, as well as in us.

Oh, that we remain on God side, and His purpose!

Thomas Randolf Wyatt

[1] The word is usually translated as “fool” but is better rendered as “folly” in 2 Corinthians 13