Sermon Illustrations

Krister Sairsingh, a former Hindu from Trinidad who is now the Chaplain to international students at Harvard. Let me read you some excerpts from his story. After making great progress in the Hindu spiritual disciplines something happened that unsettled him deeply.

During my final year of high school I had some bizarre and rather dreadful experiences in which it seemed that my mantras had failed me and the Hindu deities were of no avail. For the first time I felt that the Hindu gods had disappointed me and that the power of my special mantra was not adequate to my present crisis . . .

One of my classmates, an East Indian who identified himself as a Christian, suggested that I consider Jesus after I shared my problem with him . . .

At the urging of my classmate (now a medical doctor), I began to read the New Testament to learn more about Jesus. He totally captivated me. Here was someone who struck me as different from anyone who ever lived . . .

In reading the gospels I was drawn to this man who said he had the power to forgive sins, to break the bondage of karma. Who really was this Jesus? I really wanted to know. I began a careful study of the gospels. During those two months I would go into the cane fields and cry aloud to the unknown God, hoping that the truth would be revealed to me. More than anything else I wanted the truth.

The weeks went by and still I could not get away from the attractive power of Jesus. As I read his sayings in the gospels, I thought he was speaking directly to me. It was as if he were telling me that he could actually come to me, lift the fear of death, break the bondage of karma, forgive my sins and make me truly alive . . .

One night, after meditation on the account in John’s gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus, I asked Jesus to forgive my sins, to set me free from the bondage of karma and to become the Lord of my life. I had come to believe that he was the only one who could do that . . . That night I poured out my heart to him in tears. I knew when I got up from my knees that something eventful, life-changing, had happened. Jesus the Lord had entered my life. (Veritas Reconsidered, pp. 19–20)

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