This is Easter week, a time to focus on the passion of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world and the Messiah for the Jews. And it just happens that forty-eight years ago today I married my high-school sweetheart!
As far as Easter goes, there was no thought of it when Doug and I set our wedding date. As it turned out, it was mid-April that year. This year our anniversary falls between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. Nothing profound about that; in fact, in 2005 our anniversary was on Easter Sunday.
I met Doug only once when I was fourteen. When I was sixteen, we met at a school dance, and five years later we were married. The first eight months we lived the words of Paul Anka’s song and did it our way. Then we met Someone and chose to do it His way, and our life changed. Did we regret our new life choices at the expense of losing old friends? We missed them, absolutely, but God brought new friends into our lives, friends that soon became like family. Did our decision to accept Christ as our Saviour provide a smooth sail as life happened? No. I have to admit that there have been many times (probably too many!) when things didn’t go just as I’d wanted or planned, that I’ve selfishly said, “I didn’t buy into this!” Yet, through all the ups and downs of life, we’ve never regretted making the decision to become Christ followers.
But as much as I’d like to expound on my forty-eight years with Doug, I’d rather focus my thoughts on Easter: what the death and resurrection of Jesus has meant for humankind and how some in the world have rejected Him.
During a Sunday school class at First Orlando Baptist a few days ago, I heard a woman tell a profoundly disturbing story.
Although unaffiliated with Florida Atlantic University, acting Professor Deandre Poole had instructed his students to write the word Jesus on a piece of paper. When finished, he then instructed them to stand up, drop the paper on the floor and stomp on it. One student, a devout Mormon, refused to participate in the exercise and complained to school officials saying Poole had offended his religious convictions: “Anytime you stomp on something it shows that you believe that something has no value. So if you were to stomp on the word Jesus, it says that the word has no value.” He was suspended from the class.
In a letter to the university since the event, Governor Rick Scott has stated that “the professor’s lesson was offensive and even intolerant to Christians and those of all faiths who deserve to be respected as Americans entitled to religious freedom.” Kudos to Governor Scott!
My first reaction to the professor’s unethical request was, God forgive him. My second reaction was profound fear not 
only for Professor Poole but for his students. (You know, there are some people you just don’t want to be near when God passes judgement!) Regardless of how the exercise was cloaked in the innocence of an academic assignment, did they not understand Who they were rejecting in their willing involvement? Didn’t they get it? That stomping on the name of Jesus was equal to spitting in the face of God? It’s very sobering, isn’t it, to consider how easy it is to follow after the wrong someone and how baffling, especially at this time of the year—or anytime of the year, for that matter—that such blatant rejection is encouraged and tolerated.
The Someone we accepted as our Saviour and the Messiah for the Jews has made our forty-eight years something we’d do again in a heartbeat. But more importantly, through His death and resurrection, Christ has guaranteed us complete forgiveness and eternity with Him. I hope the professor and his students will consider their actions and seek out the most important Someone they can ever know.
“I am the resurrection and the life.
The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;
and whoever lives by believing in me will never die”
(John 11:25-26 NIV).
Whoever listens to you listens to me,
also whoever rejects you rejects me,
and whoever rejects me rejects the One who sent me”
(Luke 10:16 Complete Jewish Bible).
Follow Me!