TRADITIONALLY, Jamaicans see the New Year holiday as the time of greatest hope for a new beginning, but deep meditation on the Easter narrative suggests that the resurrection story offers mankind the greatest hope of renewal and better existence. Whereas a new year might lead to a new start while attempting to shed the baggage of the old year, the resurrection theme offers hope even to those who are as hopeless as being dead. The resurrection climax of the Easter season is therefore a great time for Jamaicans at home and abroad to stop, take stock and think about steps they could take to improve their personal lives and that of their God-blessed island home.

The jury might still be out on whether there was a historical Jesus who at the first Easter endured His passion of suffering through betrayal, denial, rejection, abandonment, abuse, mocking, scourging, torture and the most shameful and painful death then known – crucifixion. But there is no denying that the Easter message, as presented in Scripture, has given new life to billions of humans over the past two millennia and continues to do so today. And the most powerful point of that Easter story is the resurrection of the Christ on the first day of the week after three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth, even passing through hell, that is, Hades or Sheol. To sceptics, atheists, agnostics and even believers who are still seeking physical or other proofs for the resurrection, this writer recommends that they partake of the bliss of the resurrection message through faith in Yeshua Messiah.

Every reader knows at least one person who has experienced at least one of the manifestations of the resurrection power of the Christ. This writer will mention only those scenarios that he has personally witnessed in nearly four decades of ministry. Through the Catholic Youth Organisation (CYO), Student Christian Movement (SCM), University and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), Youth for Christ (YFC), and other young people’s Christian ministries – all grounded in belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and His eternal, living presence in heaven and on earth today – numerous youths have been delivered from gangs, drugs, prostitution, illiteracy, depression, poverty and myriad similar manifestations of hopelessness. For example, the CYO affiliated with the Mount Alvernia High School for girls once brought hope and help to the poor, elderly and sick people of Montego Bay. Through the SCM movement at Cornwall College, boys who once preferred drugs to knowledge were changed by faith in the resurrected Christ and they became A-students and preachers of the gospel among boarders at CC.

Through the UCCF movement at the College of Arts, Science and Technology (now UTech), young men and women discovered and developed their talents – in music, public speaking and other areas – and graduated to become national and international leaders in their fields. The Montego Bay YFC rally once ran a counselling department that delivered youths from depression, addictions and other problems that hound adolescents, ensuring those youths grew up to live normal and productive lives. A teenage Jamaican named Perry McIntyre was moved by the resurrection power to form Christ’s Agents (CAs), an interdenominational group of young people who walked the streets of Montego Bay and travelled throughout Western Jamaica helping young and old holistically. One evening, as the group prayed, members were moved to rush to Cornwall Regional Hospital where a teenage girl known to CAs was hospitalised for depression. As soon as CAs arrived on the third floor entry level, that teenager was spotted in a wheelchair trying to throw herself off the balcony. The group saved her and took her back to her ward. They learnt that she had outwitted those who had her on a suicide watch near the nurses’ station. The girl admitted that she was going to end her life but CAs stopped her. She was eventually healed of her depression and went on to live many happy years, up to the last time CAs heard from her. From CAs also came the first black vicar of the UK Parliament, the Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin and other great leaders.

One concerned pastor, the Rev Dr VG Panton, once intervened among warring gangs in Montego Bay and succeeded in stemming (at that time practically eradicating) deadly feuds and helping many young men to move on to more productive lives. Through belief in the resurrection of the Christ and the power it engenders, slaves were freed, nations won independence, natives were educated, and hosts of despondent people regained hope, got new beginnings and experienced better lives. On Holy Wednesday I was at the hospital visiting a St Elizabeth senior citizen who had suffered a stroke and was very near death. Her son, a preacher living in the US, organised a prayer group, flew to Jamaica and managed to rush his mother to America for treatment, so that by Wednesday, less than three weeks later, his mother had regained speech, restarted use of her limbs and was offering prayers of praise for her new lease on life.

There is a lot of hopelessness in Jamaica and our world. The greatest hope for deliverance is not in politicians, corporations, churches, or even in any human hero or institution. Each reader will find greatest hope through faith in Christ and the message of his resurrection. Read that story again and see how the symbols, themes, imageries and developments illustrate current events in your own life and in the Jamaican situation. Consider the cross and reflect on poverty, illness and other vicissitudes. Contemplate the crowds and ponder the people involved from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday and see yourself and your fellowmen today. Most important, look at Christ as he endured His passion, succumbed to death, but ultimately triumphed in resurrection. All is not lost for Jamaica and Jamaicans because the resurrection pericope of Easter teaches that there is new life, even after what seems like the end of it all at death. Moreover, this resurrection can recur in the same life many times until that soul transitions to higher existence in the afterlife to experience the final resurrection. Happy Resurrection Season!

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