From Despair to Hope!
The advent of March Madness, in which more than 60 teams will compete for the NCAA college basketball championship, reminds me of an ancient, indigenous culture in Mexico in which athletes competed in perhaps what could be considered the predecessor of hoop games. I took this picture below during my recent trip to the anthropolgy museum in Mexico City.
This ancient game was played with a hard rubber ball that acutally had a surprising bounce. The goal was to hit the ball with your hip and pass it through the donut hoop. In modern basketball, the winner receives a trophy and perhaps a future career in the sport. In this ancient game, the winner was sacrificed to a god. Gulp, talk about lack of motivation! However, to win and be sacrificed was considered a high honor thus offering your life and giving glory to the ancient gods. Those days and ancient cultures were filled with darkness and superstition. Sadly, those hopeless realities still exist in cultures today all across Middle America and the Caribbean islands. One of our new believers we work with was recently invited by her mother-in-law to take her sick baby to a witch for healing. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me (John 14:6)." And yet today there are still so many following misguided paths, false teachings, and demonic darkness that blind the heart from the purity of Jesus and eternal life.
As ancient cultures of the Americas were engaged in battle with European conquerers, the Europeans brought with them a rather twisted version of the cross.
Long before Martin Luther and the Reformers, old Catholicism brought to the new world a forced religion with the powerful symbol of the cross, placed on the top of many Latin American cathedrals like the one above. This "cross" religion had been diluted to the violent conquering of ancient cultures. Instead of bringing the hope of the cross, they brought the sword. What was left were cultures all across our region filled with a syncretized religion that mixed the worship of ancient gods, the adored saints, maryology, and comlicated ritual all in the name of the church. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life..." To be his disciple means an exlusive obedience to Him alone. Jesus is the way to God because He is indeed God. Jesus is the truth of the God because He reveals our sin and depraved nature in light of the perfect Father. He is the truth because he died and shed his blood and became the perfect atoning sacrifice in order to break the chains of darkness, sin, and separation we live out. Jesus is the author of life! He gave us life at birth, "through him all things were created..." He gives us life and purpose while we live for the glory of God. And he gives us eternal life! It is for this reason alone that missionaries and all believers are called out into the thousands of cultures of the world. We are called to bring hope, hope like my dear friends below now live out!
Socio and Celeste have eight children whom you see above. Two years ago they were falling apart as a family. Socio spent his waking hours in a world of drunkeness, gambling, and foul living. His wife and kids suffered greatly. One night he had come to the end. He fell on the ground and cried out to the living God for deliverance from a life of despair. He also prayed that night as a last resort and crisis of belief. "God, if you really exist, deliver me from my drunkeness and if you really exist, send someone to my house to teach me the truth."
The next week, with a jeep full of new believers, we showed up in their community and stopped directly in front of Socio and Celeste's house. There we began a bible study which is now a church, preaching the truth of God's Word. There is hope! All the hours of prayer, hours of preaching and teaching, and hours of going to community after community seeking the lost, is worth it all when you see entire families come to Christ!
There is hope!
There is hope alone in Jesus Christ our Lord! May all the generations to come know this great hope!
As ancient cultures of the Americas were engaged in battle with European conquerers, the Europeans brought with them a rather twisted version of the cross.
The next week, with a jeep full of new believers, we showed up in their community and stopped directly in front of Socio and Celeste's house. There we began a bible study which is now a church, preaching the truth of God's Word. There is hope! All the hours of prayer, hours of preaching and teaching, and hours of going to community after community seeking the lost, is worth it all when you see entire families come to Christ!
There is hope!
