Challenge the Good News Paper
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
TM THE GOOD NEWS PAPER No. 422 au.challenge.news Ian McCormack and his wife Jane. RRETURNETURN FFROMROM TTHEHE DDEADEAD aster, on the Christian calen- lymph glands. My right lung started dar, is celebrated as the time to be constricted. Perspiration was SStungtung ffiveive ttimesimes when Jesus Christ died and pouring off me, and it felt like a Erose again on the third day. branding iron had been put on my by box jellyfishy box Butjellyfish Jesus is not the only person to arm.” have ever tasted death and lived to Miles from the nearest hospi- tell about it. tal, Ian struggled to get people to Near death experiences abound. understand the seriousness of his The big diff erence is that the Bible situation. Twice he heard a clear, teaches that Jesus came back in unknown voice instruct him. Once a new, eternal body that will live it told him not to close his eyes and forever and never die again. These a second time it told him to beg for other people, even the ones Jesus help. EASTER ANSWERS BIG QUESTIONS resurrected, like the well-known Soon Ian’s body went into mus- story of Lazarus, only came back cular contortions, spasming uncon- BY CHRIS BRENNAN “religious person”. It might be that at times they come bubbling to the in their own old bodies, which died trollably. Then an icy cold breeze we are letting go of some really surface despite our best e orts of again years later. blew through him. Dehydrated and S0, it’s Easter... again. It seems to important possible answers as busyness or intellect. Surfer Ian McCormack had a near paralysed, he felt death (necrosis) happen every year! I don’t expect we allow ignorance of theological Easter holds possible answers to death experience in 1982, at 26, in creeping up from his feet. things to have changed much since thinking to advance. both of them, even as we concern Mauritius. He knows what it is to When he eventually made it into last year either. Let me give an example. ourselves with chocolate and bunny glimpse beyond the grave but he an ambulance, Ian saw fl ashes of There will be advertisements fi lled A few weeks ago, I was confronted rabbits. also learnt the secret to, one day, his childhood. He thought, “If I die with chocolate and bunnies, and by a person whom I had not What happens after we die? getting a body that will never die. now, where am I going?” there will be news reports of schools, previously met. He was clearly Well, Easter says that there is a life The blond Kiwi had been surfi ng, A professed atheist, Ian “saw” a universities, and companies who for su ering from emotional pain, later after death, and the accounts of diving and hitchhiking around the vision of his Christian mother pray- the “good” of their students, clients attributed to physical and emotional Jesus speaking with people, eating, world for two years when he ended ing for him. She said, “No matter and customers have made the abuse. touching and being touched, after up on the island of Mauritius, just what you’ve done, Son, if you will executive decision to remove Easter The discussion began like this: His resurrection, supply us with off the coast of South Africa. There call out to God, He will hear you and from their spaces. “You tell me what happens after we an objective example of someone the Creole fi shermen taught him to forgive you.” Usually, this is couched in terms of die! You can’t can you, because no who has come back from the dead night dive for crayfi sh. Ian found out later, that at that reducing o ence, rather than more one has ever come back to tell us? with authority to declare what lies One night, Ian was stung a total moment, on the other side of the truthfully as an advancement of a We just die and the maggots get us.” beyond the grave. of fi ve times by box jellyfi sh, argu- world, his mother had been pray- di erent socio-political agenda. Perhaps without even realising it, And do we matter? ably the deadliest creature known to ing urgently for him as she sensed Sadly, we’ll end up swallowing the pain of his situation has caused Again, Easter o ers an intriguing man. It usually kills an adult victim danger. the action even though we are him to consider a huge philosophical answer. The Bible is clear that in 10-15 minutes. Ian spoke in his thoughts: “God, mostly savvy enough to spot the question. “What happens to me once Jesus died on that very fi rst Good “It felt like an electrical shock. I don’t know if you’re real, or if you motivation, because each little I die?” And perhaps even, “Do I have Friday with purpose. It was to take I was in excruciating pain,” he can hear me. But if You can I have moment doesn’t matter enough for a meaning?” a punishment due to ● remembers. “[Almost immediately] no idea what to pray. Please help us to act. These are uncomfortable others so that they Turn I could feel the toxin pumping up me.” Here is the thing for me as a questions that we mostly ignore, but might be spared. to page 3 through my system and up into my ● Turn to page 3 Teen NNoo Lessons Easter for aangelngel from a Kids talk GARETH sausage dog PAGE 8 BACK PAGE THOMPSON PAGE 11 PAGES 5,6,7 2 Challenge • Edition 422 EEssentialssential eelementlement Convincing evidence of life A NOTABLE CONVERSATION BY ALAN BAILEY ABOUT WATER ON an average day, you and I use a A man sat on the side of a well in after death staggering 450 litres of it. Yes, it could the hot Middle East. A woman came to only be water— and we take it for draw water up in a bucket and carry it granted. It’s just there at thehe turn-turn- away. He asked her for a drink and this BY RICHARD W INNES ing of a tap. We not only drinkrink it, started a conversation that has gone we wash our dishes, ourselvesselves down in history. There was an amaz- MANY years ago a submarine sank and our clothes with it,, ing change of direction when he said off the coast of Provincetown. When water our gardens and he had water for her that would divers descended, they searched fl ush our toilets. Not to quench her thirst forever. This for any possible signs of life within. mention washing the car was hard for her to understand, as Listening closely, they detected a and fi lling the pool. it is for present day readers. slight tapping sound. Somebody was COMMON BUT His words were, “Everyone who sending a message in Morse Code NOT SO COMMON drinks this water will be thirsty asking, “Is there hope?” Our planet has water in again, but whoever drinks the water Facing death can be a terrifying abundance when seen as a I give him will never thirst. Indeed, experience – especially if there is no whole. The oceans are massive. Sev- the water I give him will become in hope of life after death. enty percent of the earth’s surface. him a spring of water welling up to For example, Voltaire, who spent But those that peer into the heavens eternal life.” most of his life fi ghting Christianity, and tell us about the rest of the solar Life that never ends is like a stream cried out with his dying breath, “I am system and the portion of the universe of water that goes on and on. People abandoned by God and man. I shall we know anything about, fi nd little everywhere are thirsting for a new kind go to hell.” water there. of life – a new quality of life. So many Sir Thomas Scott, Chancellor of Two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. thirst but do not fi nd. The woman in England, said as he was dying, “Until Simple chemically, but both common the story had tried in many ways to this moment I thought there was and rare. Plentiful but precious. fi nd what her heart craved. Jesus knew neither God nor hell; now I know BE THANKFUL FOR IT that and made the off er of a completely and feel that there are both, and I Life depends on it. Life could never satisfying answer to her need. The am doomed to perdition by the just have begun without it. Summer days off er stands today. Many have found judgement of the Almighty.” APRIL 8, 2018: A girl holds a candle in Gaza City during Easter celebrations. make us thankful for it. Cool water by experience what it means to tap into How diff erent are the words of (Photo Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images) to swallow down and shower in is a the eternal, to fi nd their inner thirst the followers of Christ who, when blessing. Almost like a luxury. It can quenched, to discover they need look facing death, have the hope of life only be imagined what it must be like no further. after death. John Wesley, father of the to the two disciples on the road to something had happened which had wandering in a blazing desert looking Christ came for the purpose of giving worldwide Methodist movement, said Emmaus, to all the apostles except utterly transformed their lives.