Easter is my (Johnny) favorite holiday. Searching back through my memories it seems that I have always loved this holiday. Certainly as a child it was more about candy, getting dressed up for church and egg hunts than any faith related event. There is just something about searching around the back yard for brightly dyed eggs and those oh so precious plastic ones full of jelly beans.
When I decided as a teenager to get serious about figuring this God thing out, which I still have not, the holiday became more about the resurrection of Jesus. Remembering the crucifixion and all the events leading up to it took precedence over the candy and eggs. I even adopted a few years back the practice of meditating on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Morning on the fact that the original followers of Jesus did not expect his resurrection. They would have been devastated at his murder by the state and trying to figure out whether or not it was worth following his teachings even though he had been so easily captured and executed. I like to think, or hope, I would have still followed his teachings and example, even without the hope of the resurrection. Guess I will never know, since I learned the end of the story first.
I know there is a lot of theological debate about the resurrection and the events leading up to it. There must be thousands of atonement theories out there. Many people, there are even some days I must admit I am one, cannot even accept the resurrection. It is just too big a magical leap for a good number of us educated folks. There are times when I get bogged down with the details and theology. I have to be honest and say that I do not mind getting lost in the story and trying to figure it out. I love that kind of stuff. However, that is all it is when you deconstruct it, stuff.
What really matters is what does the resurrection of Jesus mean to you? How it works is just fun talk and speculation. Not a single person reading this was there in Jerusalem a couple of thousand years ago. No one wrote down details about the event; first century Palestinians did not write play by play accounts of events. If we are being honest, or at least honest enough, we have no way to know definitively what happened on that day.
I can already hear/read the response, "I know what happened on that day. It's in the Bible. If it's in the Bible it must be factual." Today we are celebrating Easter 2017. That is the year 2017. This year. We know stuff. We know stuff about stuff. Our stuff knows more stuff about stuff than the smartest person knew in the first century. There is no scientific evidence that the resurrection took place. None. Zip. Nada. Yet I still believe in the resurrection. Why? I choose to have faith.
Faith is not scientific. Faith is not black and white. Faith is not measurable with a scale or a ruler. Faith is believing in something unbelievable. Living for something bigger than understanding. Faith transcends science. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. It is not something provable, which is why it is called faith.
I believe in the resurrection because it gives me hope. I have hope in Jesus. In him. Not the religion that Paul and others founded in his name, but in the man Jesus who was from Nazareth. Jesus came and preached a radical anti-empire anti-religion and pro-people message. He did this knowing that the Empire regularly crucified people for doing that very thing. He continually admonished his followers and listeners to love their enemies knowing that these very people where longing to overthrow their oppressors and mete out justice on them. He willing went to the cross in faith that his message would be preserved and passed down the ages.
This brings me hope. The God I grew up with would never have endorsed the Sermon on the Mount. No sir. That god wanted to squash me for looking at girls. That all powerful god needed my money, or rather as I was taught in church he wanted his money back. The god I grew up with hated people so much that he created a place of everlasting torment just so he could watch them suffer. That god scared me; in fact that was the point. Hope dawned as I read the Gospels for myself. I was stunned. After that I read the entire protestant Bible front to back several times in a row. Then I parked myself in the sermon on the mount. This Jesus was a man that I did not have to fear. He did not want to stab out my eye, or deposit me in hell to be tortured day after day for all of eternity just because I forgot to dot an i or cross a t. He was lovable and full of love.
The resurrection is God's stamp of approval on Jesus. It is God's way of saying this guy is worth paying attention to and following. Easter brings hope. I have hope that if we can live the message of Jesus, our lives, the whole world, will become paradise.
“Where there's life there's hope, and need of vittles.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
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