I congratulate you with the Resurrection feast that all Eastern Christians celebrated a few days ago, asking God to intervene with His mercy and spare the world from pestilence and diseases. To be continued and, to grant recovery and protects our country from all evil.
With Resurrection, the renewal of hope in the eternal life that awaits the righteous whereas there is no grief, distress, or pain but unspoken joy: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” When a man tries to speak about heaven and eternity, he can’t find enough words to describe them, so he stops and says: “and to die is gain.”
However, in return we find a group of people denied the existence of God in their lives with actions not with words: I mean they deny Him with actions that God prohibits while their tongues speak about God!!! The saying of Christ applies to them: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”
It could be even like those rulers as Jeremiah the prophet said: “Many rulers have destroyed My vineyard, They have trodden My portion underfoot; They have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate; Desolate, it mourns to Me; The whole land is made desolate…”
Another group of people decided to deny the existence of God by sayings and actions together, and that’s how that group doesn’t believe in the Resurrection or the Judgment Day. Some of them refuse to believe because they don’t see God by actual sight!! As David the prophet said: “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”Also during the days of Christ, the Sadducees didn’t believe in the Resurrection; thus they discussed and asked Him in that matter. He clarified the corruption of their beliefs: “But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken!”
Most recently, the Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarinexpressed that belief saying: “I was stunned by the magnificent cosmos, and I was searching for God but I didn’t find Him!!” However it’s inevitable to stop at this strange belief: as the atheists believe in the power of the wind, electricity and electromagnetic force without being able to see it; however they refuse to believe in God as they don’t see Him by their own eyes!!! Whereas they speak about the work of His hands as: nature and the accurate order of the cosmos!!! It is sufficient for a man to look to himself to see God’s power and His greatness, which science still discovers new every day about them concerning the precise systems in which his body operates.
The third group of people doesn’t deny the existence of God but they desire to have their own lives away from Him!! This means that God stays in His heaven away from them!! They long to live according to their pleasures without any restriction, condition or commandment; they don’t realize that the commandment and the teaching are to them and their own peace. That was how those people walked through the paths of life in confusion: to some of them, sin and evil deeds became their supplies, whilst the life of others became full of worries, disturbance, pain and loss of peace. A third group of them, their lives turned to a pursuit to the earthly rule by gaining money, authority or power.
Today while we celebrate the joys of the Resurrection, we have to bear in our minds; to prepare for the day that we shall meet God- Glory to His name- as each person will stand before the Just God to be rewarded for his deeds: whether they were good or evil! Love or hate! Life or death! And the affliction that the world passes through today because of this pandemic, is considered a strong evidence on the weakness of humanity and their disorder in front of a virus which was described to be very weak, and doesn’t need strong Antiseptics but water and soap are enough to destroy it.
Yes, humanity will always be in great need of a sanctuary that provides peace and tranquility, and there is no shelter but in God- Glory to His name- keeper from all evils, granter of tranquility and peace, sparer of pestilence from the world.
Many happy and peaceful returns to you all.
Stories about beautiful Egypt never end!
General Bishop, Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
