Holy Week hangover

It’s interesting how many people simply continued where they left off for the Holy Week. Several text brigades resumed their character assassination of the Genuine Opposition immediately after Easter lunch.

In Lipa City, Batangas the campaign staff of a congressional aspirant went wild last Saturday pasting posters and hanging streamers on anything and everything that did not move. No tree has been spared, even cemeteries have become campaign opportunities.

The innocent bystanders asked: "what happened to the week of holy reflection?" Obviously nothing has changed at least for the people who missed the point.

Even television could not restrain itself as competing stations tried to outdo each other in hanging people’s dirty linen on air. What made me sick was how these same purveyors of cheap and sleazy would preach ethics on Easter Sunday.

All these made my message at our Easter service at Victory Christian fellowship in Lipa more relevant. I shared an insight to why God saw the need to "Resurrect" Jesus Christ.

God clearly knew that people would simply revert back to their true character even after Jesus Christ died on the cross.

Take for instance the Apostles. They were handpicked, they gave up family and whatever life they knew to follow Christ, they were trained and mentored on the Old Testament as well as the new teachings of Christ. They personally witnessed the miracles of Christ.

They eventually got sent out to do the work, they were given power to heal and to cast out demons. They were also told in advance that things would take a different turn for Christ.

These guys saw it all, heard it all and did it all. But when Christ was arrested they abandoned Him, hid in fear, lived in defeat, Mary Magdalene began to believe the gossip that the body of Christ would be stolen. Thomas refused to believe Jesus was back. John continued his self-centered commentaries as the "Apostle Jesus loved".

In other words, three years of supernatural training and experience amounted to ZIP.

If God did not resurrect Jesus, Simon Peter would not have been forgiven, anointed and appointed. There would be no Church to speak of. No Christians to talk about. They would not have stayed in Jerusalem long enough to receive the Holy Spirit. They would not have gone to the ends of the earth.

Coming back from the dead finally killed their disbelief.

* * *

From indifference to complacency, we now find a heightened interest in the medical condition of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.

When first reported, it was said to be nothing more than chronic gastritis. As it turns out FG’s condition was worse after tests showed that he had Dissecting Aortic Aneurysm.

In spite of all this, people did not really concern themselves with the matter until comments and internet materials began to state that such a condition spelled a life expectancy of ten years.

Any patient with Dissecting Aortic Aneurysm can most certainly expect it to be a life changing experience, but what happens to a person who is told: You have ten years to live?

Is it a blessing or a curse to know you only have ten years to live?

To the Spartans it wouldn’t matter much since their battlecry is "tomorrow we dine in hell!" but for us mere mortals the perspective is certainly different.

I remember the dying cry of a former colleague in media whose last thoughts were "Lord please not yet! My children are so young."

When I interviewed Rio Diaz Cojuangco, I asked her how she could be at peace and so pleasant about certain death? Her response was: "Cito, I’m already dead. In your case you still have to die."

I have since "died" twice after testing false positive for prostate cancer and once for potential pancreatic cancer. I still remember the chilling effect and heaviness on my chest.

I remember the doctor telling me: "Cito, I’m not going to be pleasant about it. If the tests confirm that you have pancreatic cancer, it’s going to be for three to six months at the most."

All I could do was deny it. Driving home, I remember having a REAL conversation with God. "I refuse to believe I have cancer! I can’t believe you would give me a baby girl this late in life only to take her father away."

"Dying" a second time does not lessen the trauma. It still makes you angry, it still brings out denial.

My most recent reminder of mortality was an episode of Angina like no other. I was writing my column one evening when I experienced pain that felt like somebody was slowly stabbing me with an oversized needle straight to the heart.

This time there were no conversations. I was totally immobilized. My life did not flash in front of me. I simply realized in a split of a second that this could be it.

My wife Karen has been reading the book Freakonomics and there the author points out that most people are more frightened with the possibility of imminent death than about dying in ten years.

That apparently is one of the reasons why most people would rather drive for several days than fly the same distance in an hour or more. I did notice how many prayerful people there are on airplanes than there are on buses, cars, boats and trains.

Perhaps it is best to remember: It matters not to God how you died. What matters is how you lived and what you left behind.