THE CHRISTIAN'S COLUMBUS DAY -- Devotional for October 12, from "Good Seeds"

But you shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-9).

People are strongly divided in feelings and opinions regarding the place of Christopher Columbus in the history of the United States. First of all, he didn’t “discover” this land. Yes, it was news to the Old Country that there was a New Country – another continent between Europe and Asia, heading west. But it wasn’t exactly an uninhabited land – it wasn’t new to Native Americans who’d lived here for centuries! And strictly speaking, this Italian explorer, sponsored and outfitted by Spain, wasn’t the first European to touch down on the Western hemisphere, for don’t forget good old Leif Ericksen and his fellow Norsemen, whose Viking vessels had anchored along these shores many years before the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria! And then there’s the problem about what soon followed Columbus’s claim of the New World: with the exchange of goods and services came the ravages of smallpox and the curse of slavery. Why is it that whenever one culture visits another as much or more harm comes from it than good? No matter what the question, regarding the troubles of mankind, the answer is always the same: SIN. Bring it home, now, to where we live: when you or I enter a room of people, do things become better, or worse? What do we bring with us when we come? What do we take away? Every visitor is a Conquistador of one kind or another! But when we read about the early church and how it spread, like wildfire through both the Jewish and Gentile world of the first century, a whole new perspective opens to us regarding God’s plan for man in his dealings with his fellow man. Before His return to heaven, Jesus left us with The Great Commission: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). We are to start with our neighbors across the street, but not to stop until we’ve crossed the sea, in sharing the Good News of salvation and heaven with anyone who will listen. And so, let the followers of Jesus from all over the world accept this dubious American holiday as a reminder of the Christian’s quest: to plant the flag of forgiveness from sin through Christ on the shores of men’s hearts wherever our travels may take us!