Easter Sunday Morning

There is a small, remote island in the Philippines, just south of Manila Bay. It is the island of Lubang. On March 10, 1974, something very remarkable happened on the island of Lubang. That was the day that Lt. Hirro Onoda of the Japanese Imperial Army, walked out of the jungle and surrendered.

The Second World War ended on September 2, 1945, when the Japanese government officially signed a surrender document aboard the battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. On that day, the gunfire stopped, the troops laid down their arms. The bloodshed was over. But for Lt. Onoda, the war went on.

He refused to believe the reports of peace he heard on the radio. He thought it was all an American trick to lure him into a trap. So he continued his one-man war for the next three decades. He simply refused to surrender.

He was pursued by Filipino soldiers who tried to find his hideout. But they could never track him down. He became an expert in jungle survival, as elusive as the animals who shared his primitive island. Every day, Onoda scanned the horizon with his binoculars to see if the Japanese Navy would return and help him to recapture Lubang. Finally, 28 years later, Onoda simply gave up.

The war had been over for three decades, but Lt. Onoda had gained no benefit from that fact. To be at peace himself, he first had to believe that a peace treaty had, in fact, been signed, and second, to personally accept it by laying down his arms and giving up his life of resistance. It took him a long time to do so.

Lt. Onoda’s situation on the island of Lubang is similar to many people’s relationship to God. When Jesus Christ died on the cross on Good Friday in the year 30 A.D., his death was the peace treaty between God and man. The Bible says so.

But his death on the cross doesn’t bring us peace with God until we personally believe that it is true, and accept it as applying to us. That’s the choice we must make. We can, like Lt. Onoda, choose to go on fighting and running and hiding - fugitives from God. Or we can lay down our arms and accept the peace.

Colossians 1:19ff For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through Christ to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

Lt. Onoda could have died in his jungle hideaway, still at war, and no one would have known the difference. Instead, he chose in the end to come out of the jungle and surrender. He was reunited with his relatives who thought him long dead. He began to enjoy the peace.

What will be your choice in your relationship with God? Do you want to live out your days in a state of war with Him? Or will you surrender to his love by accepting what Jesus did on the cross for you?

The peace treaty has been signed. What will be your response to it?