In the next few days, Christians will be celebrating the Easter season, which is an important Christian holiday. Despite, some misconceptions about Easter, that it was originally an ancient pagan celebration of the spring equinox, Christianity has dedicated the season to observing the resurrection of Christ who is the founder of the Christian faith.
Doctrinally, Jesus Christ's death and resurrection signify God’s triumph over the forces of evil. Additionally, it emphasises the teaching of the right Christian belief of sacrifice as Jesus Christ did.
Kenya has many churches and during great Christian festivals such as Easter and Christmas, there is always the possibility of false teachings because of the excitement that surrounds the festivals.
The Easter message should give hope to Kenyans, not heresies. It’s barely a year after the Shakakhola story came to light, alongside several other cases of religious extremism mostly through indoctrination.
Although there is freedom of worship in Kenya, it comes with responsibility. Therefore, Easter message preachers should package their sermons with hope and responsibility. It should not be about extreme fasting, not taking children to hospital when sick and denouncing formal education.
The core business of religion is to give meaning and purpose to life, reinforce social stability, be an agent of social control of behaviour, promote physical and psychological well-being and motivate people to work for social change.
Consequently, Christians should push for the above and impact the lives of Kenyans who are looking for solutions to their problems.
The Easter message should speak to those mentally ill. Data show that suicide cases in men are higher than in women because of men’s failure to open communication.
According to the World Bank in 2019, 9.1 percent of men out of 100,000 died of suicide compared to 3.2 women. The risen Easter Christ gives hope to those depressed due to broken relationships, deaths of close relatives and loss of jobs, among many others.
The Easter message as a whole package should speak to reckless drivers on Kenyan roads to be careful, especially as many people travel. In the last few days, many young people have been buried after dying in road accidents mostly caused by human error. Many have been widowed, orphaned and maimed because of man’s decision not to obey simple traffic rules.
Would the Easter message speak to all Kenyans' social problems so that Jesus Christ's vision of Him coming to give life in abundance becomes real? When it seems issues are beyond man’s control it’s time to turn to the divine to provide solutions.
Every Christian leader should give hope and solutions to Kenyans in their Easter message since it is a time of reflection on how to better life.
Principal, Bishop Hannington Institute, Mombasa
