LUKE 24: 13 - 35

With shattered hopes and broken dreams two disciples walked the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, trying to sort out the events of the past thee days. How adequately their words revealed their inner struggle d turmoil. For some three years they had invested all they had in this man Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word. ow he is dead. They had hoped that he was the one to redeem d they listened to him and followed him and devoted Ives entirely to him. But now three days he had laid tomb, their vision vanquished.

It was the struggle of hope with disappointment. Belief unbelief. Their experience of Jesus death, their feeling of failure, had stripped away their faith, exposed their doubts and left them discouraged and depressed. But with all this they are now confronted with the rumor that he is not dead, but alive ... yet it is only hearsay, for none has seen him. Yet the possibility of this good news will not let them go. They struggle with it. They wrestle with what faith remains. Dare they believe again?

Like one disappointed in love who vows never to love again, they ask themselves whether they dare again to believe. Whether they dare again to hope ... to dream. Shall they risk it... especially when all they have is another's words... when they have not seen him ... when they have not touched him? Dare they believe again?

Cannot each of us say, when we have looked honestly at ourselves, that we greet the good news similarly: with belief and unbelief? We find ourselves looking back upon a faith that has faltered, a relationship with Jesus that has experienced disappointments and perhaps even failures. We have had to reckon with prayers that have gone (apparently) unanswered, experiences in life that have all but convinced us that our Lord was dead.

How much of our faith, today, lies buried and in need of resurrection? A faith in the Lord Jesus who is alive ... today, who heals the sick ... today, who gives sight to the blind ... today, who makes of us a new creation, today!

Do we dare, today, believe in such a Jesus? Do we dare take that small talent of faith which we have been given and invest it? Risk it? Do we dare?

The resurrection was for those men on the road to Emmaus. It is for you and I as we are found. struggling with our own faith today. It is not just that Jesus was raised from the dead, but that you and I might also be raised and given newness of life ... that we might have the assurance of things, hopes for and the conviction of things unseen.

Dare we hope in God that we might again praise him? Dare we believe ... truly believe?

COVER STORY

"WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT ...

When I was preparing to photograph our PIONEER front cover somebody asked this question: "What is this all about ... ?"

When we think about Easter, all kinds of thoughts come to our mind ... Childhood memories ... Springtime ... New life ... Yet I invite you to have one more glance at our front cover, and look up for yourself... :

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53: 5 - 6.)

"He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,

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making peace by the blood of his cross." (Colossians 1:18 - 20.)

"Death is swallowed up in victory!" "O Death, where is thy victory?" "O Death, where is thy sting?"

"The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (I Corinthians 15:54b-57)

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation." (II Corinthians 5:17 - 19.)

Do you get the picture! ... PRAISE GOD