This week, Christians celebrate Easter. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried, and rose from the grave on the third day. Because of Jesus’ death, we can receive God’s forgiveness through repentance. Because of His resurrection, we have hope. In Christ, we have eternal life and salvation! The Good News is that everyone who confesses that Jesus is Lord and believes that God raised him from the dead will be saved!
Accordingly, there is no salvation for those who reject that Jesus is Lord or deny that he died and was raised from the dead. The greatest need, then, of the Hui people for which we often pray, is to hear and receive the Word of God which testifies to salvation through the Son of God. What we are asking for is a great miracle, since the Hui non-believers are spiritually dead, as Ephesians Chapter 2 describes. We appeal to God’s great mercy, his great love, and for the glory of his name, to rescue Hui from their sin and make them alive in Christ!
Hui people believe that when a body dies, the soul of the person lives on in the afterlife until the Day of Resurrection. On that day, Muhammad will rise first. Upon the reuniting of soul and body, God will perform his final judgment on each person. Based on one’s deeds and beliefs during life, only those judged worthy may enter heaven. From this view of judgment and afterlife, it becomes clear that one’s only hope is to try as best as one can to be worthy of heaven. In Islam, Allah is “Most Merciful,” yet much of the burden still lies on the Muslim for any chance of getting into heaven.
As the following video shows, a Hui funeral is a very religious event. Islamic prayers, led by the imam, are chanted by the Muslim men in attendance. The body is then carried from the mosque to the burial site. The Quran prohibits cremation, and Muslims in China have received from the government the special right to purchase burial plots. Since most Chinese use cremation, this is a cultural difference that divides the Hui and the majority Chinese people. However, this could be a potential gospel bridge with Christians who also favor burial.
Pray that many Hui people this year would hear the gospel and come to know our Savior Christ Jesus, “who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). Through Christ alone will Hui people have any assurance of salvation and hope of eternal life with God.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
Please pray this week for Hui people:
- That uncertainty about God’s forgiveness and their own salvation would lead them to seek out the truth about Jesus
- Thinking about questions of life and death, Hui would be open to learning from the Bible
- Through conversation bridges such as these, God would give Hui a gospel encounter with a believer in Christ
- So that the hopelessness of working to earn a peaceful afterlife would be replaced by hope in Christ alone
- That God would bring salvation to Hui families, through receiving His Word and trusting in Jesus Christ
* The Know Thy Hui Neighbor article by Julie Ma was a helpful resource for this post. Read more of Julie’s articles about the Hui at ChinaSource.org.