What has The Cross to do in a world plagued by so many negatives – confusion, leadership failure, economic fallout, youth restiveness and other crass problems?
The Stark Realities
Just the other day, the renowned business tycoon, billionaire and philanthropist, Warren Buffett and other top business icons across the world warned that the stock market is about to crash soon again. And around the same time, a New York Times writer posted that tens of thousands were recently protesting in Russia for the ousting of President Vladimir Putin, while the governor of the state of Utah in the United States, following civil disobedience declared state of emergency in his state.
Again, of recent, Seth J. Frantzman, wrote on The Jerusalem Post about the conversion of the famous Hagia Sophia building in Turkey back to a mosque which was firstly a church structure until 1453, when it was turned to a Mosque, and then to a museum in 1934. According to him, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the re-dedication made some statements targeting the liberation of the al-Aqsa mosque under the control of Jerusalem’s Old City. That implies that Turkey is already marking down the nation of Israel for the unknown.
And without mincing words, these are just pockets of the indices of socio-political and economic wreckage, as well as evident reality of more imminent religious feuds hanging loose upon our world. On one side, across the globe, many political leaders and health workers cannot still fathom the real truth about the dreaded CORONA VIRUS. Confusion is dubiously sweeping through the air, as national economies, businesses, organisations and households are falling apart – an overwhelming testament of the impact of the virus.
On the other hand, suicide is becoming the norm. Many are obliterating themselves for various reasons. Just few days ago, a former Command Sergeant, Major Bert Puckett remarking on the death of Master Sergeant, Andrew Christian Marckesano – a decorated Green Beret in the US army, known as “Captain America”, who recently committed suicide in front of his wife, noted that the late sergeant is one of the estimated 20 combat veterans who are killing themselves on daily basis.
While some are committing suicide for lack of money, injustice, lost of wealth or fortune, intractable health conditions etc., what might really had been the reason for such a successful soldier with great military experience who just resumed work at the Pentagon, Washington DC, to take his life leaving behind no clear message about it? May be this man must have come to know about the lies upon which wars are fought. It could be that the memories of the carnage of war that he has seen, having served in various places including Afghanistan, haunted him to death; none can really tell.
Nigeria My Country:
Back in Nigeria my homeland, if I had read a true news story, over 300 hundred soldiers recently walked out of military service. May be, they have seen what is unbelievable about the military leadership as the country continues to wage war with terrorism and banditry.
May be they have seen how some of their gallant comrades are thrown into the forefront of fire with epileptic weapons and they die as people with no heritage, after all, they took the oath of service. But surely, they have their reasons, and a right to back out, and live their lives as normal citizens if that will meet their inner longings.
And again, Corona Virus is dealing with us mercilessly if we dare trust the daily report of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). Education has become a story with redundant arguments and divergent facts from different sources from the ministry of education. And somehow, many have lost track of where we are really going as a nation.
The Wholesome Result:
Put of all that together, and many others around the world and you will agree with me that there is a sense in which we can say that these are dastardly uncertain times – that the world has found itself on the crossroads – and a sort of dilemma. Puzzlement, trepidation and debauchery have become the descriptive terms for our present world.
When you consider it closely, you discover that not only have we advanced so well in science and technology which has failed to help us out of this constricting chain of social ailments; but that also we are where we are today because over the centuries we have maintained a steady strident advance away from the Cross of Christ – the centre spread of history – the transcendentally prescriptive place for our redemption, restoration and healing – the very solution to our social maladies.
Outside of the cross, men think of only right and left – always about the right and left wings, whether you are looking at it politically, religiously and economically. But when one draws near, one realises by the physical design of the Cross of Jesus Christ that life is not even first about right and left, but about the up and a down – the vertical or transcendent. But over and over again, we have misplaced this absolute priority, thinking we can invent moral goodness of our own selves. This has been the reason for all of the misunderstandings, chaotic evils, and outright wars.
The Indisputable-Transcendent Panacea:
And the refusal to allow our personal and national concerns to align or interface with the vertical dimension which the Cross of Christ symbolises in the first place, as espoused by the teachings of the Christian faith; of a truth, like the notable atheist philosopher of the last century, Jean Paul Satre once peddled, there is no way out of the human dilemma.
But on the contrary there is hope, and that is what the Gospel faith offers to a world split apart. Never forget that before He went through the excruciating death on the cross, the credible Christ made a trans-generational and profound historical credible claim: “I am the way, the truth and the life…” (John 14:6). And wherever we see the image of the cross, it reminds me and you, and the nations together that Jesus Christ is still the answer for the troubled world of our time. He has solutions for our economic and political problems. He remains the way out of our individual, national, and global challenges; and that is what the Cross stands to represent in a world that is consistently headed on a collision course!
Iniette David is a Missionary Evangelist, Christian Thinker and Writer. He writes from Uyo.
Contact: 08113190199
