wfn.org | Oldenburg Urges Korean Presbyterians to See with "Easter Eyes"

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5-April-1999 
99138 
 
    Oldenburg Urges Korean Presbyterians 
    to See with "Easter Eyes" 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
SEOUL, South Korea - Not even the Hubble Telescope can allow Christians to 
see the far-reaching implications of the resurrection of Jesus Christ like 
the power of  "Easter Eyes" - that's the message the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.) Moderator, the Rev. Douglas Oldenburg, delivered to a Korean 
Presbyterian Church on Sunday. 
 
    "Telescopes are being built that will enable us to see a candle flicker 
on the moon," he said through an interpreter to hundreds of congregants at 
Dorim Presbyterian Church during an Easter morning sermon. "But Easter Eyes 
can also leap the limits of vision and  give us a new way of seeing things 
that all our scientific technology will never enable us to see." 
 
    Oldenburg began his 30-minute sermon pondering why the disciples on the 
road to Emmaus failed to identify Jesus. He spoke of Easter Eyes as being 
the eyes of faith that can see beyond tragedies to renewal, beyond 
discouragement to hope, beyond death to eternal life. 
 
    "I rather imagine they just didn't have their Easter Eyes, their eyes 
of faith, that enabled them to see beyond the apparent and to penetrate the 
depth," said Oldenburg, who is also president of Columbia Theological 
Seminary in Decatur, Ga. 
 
    Oldenburg is heading a 10-member delegation that is visiting 
educational institutions in Asia during this "Year With Education" in the 
PC(USA). While visiting schools in South Korea, the delegation worshiped 
with the 4,500-member congregation, which started in a member's home in 
1926. 
 
    Oldenburg later preached again before 12,000 people during an evening 
service at the 60,000-member Myung Sung Presbyterian Church .His sermon 
followed a period of music, dances and drama celebrating the resurrection 
of Christ. 
 
    "It is indeed an honor to have the moderator, his wife (Claudia) and 
the associate stated clerk (Gene Turner) in our church today," said the 
church's pastor, the Rev. Eui-Woong Yu, who also is the moderator of the 
Presbyterian Church of Korea. "We rarely have a guest speaker preach on 
Easter Sunday, but it is an honor to have the moderator preach this 
morning." 
 
    During his sermon, Oldenburg said Christians facing such life tragedies 
as disease, death and war may have Easter Eyes that enable them to see the 
power of God in the resurrection of Christ and hope in a future life of 
peace with justice. 
 
    "With Easter Eyes, we can see beyond all those discouraging realities 
and maintain the hope, the ultimate confidence, that God will someday right 
all the wrongs in the world," he said. "Easter Eyes give us the confidence 
that peace and justice will someday prevail, and that this God's kingdom 
will come on Earth as it is in heaven. For Christ is risen. Christ is alive 
in this world." 
 
    He praised and thanked God for giving us the vision that Easter Eyes 
can provide. 
 
    "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ," Oldenburg said, quoting St. Paul. 
 
    Yu told the congregation that the timing of Oldenburg's sermon was 
significant because it was on Easter Sunday that PC(USA)'s first missionary 
arrived in Korea in 1885. 
 
    "We give thanks to God for the long partnership that has existed 
between our church and yours," Oldenburg told the churchgoers before 
starting his sermon. 
 
He began with a traditional American Easter greeting. 
 
    "Christ has risen!" he chanted. The audience replied in Korean, with 
Insik Kim, PC(USA)'s coordinator for East Asia/Pacific, interpreting, "He 
has risen indeed!" 

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