a tiny Easter rant

During 10th hour resource on Thursday, the last hour of school for the week, an eighth grader called to me, “What are you doing this weekend?” 

It was a small group, not like the forty-five of the previous hour. No need to maintain order, so I simply responded, “Nothing. What are you doing?” 

“Having Easter.” She turned back toward her friend. 

Oh, yeah, Sunday is Easter.

When I texted Kay a moment ago about topic ideas, she replied: “It is Easter… I’ve been thinking about Lent and celebrating and lack thereof. Particularly how insignificant Easter feels if one doesn’t observe Lent.”

I haven’t been observing Lent. Oh, I got ashes. A palm leaflet is wedged behind the thermostat above the piano. I stuck my hand into the water in the font – "Remember your baptism and be thankful" – after a Holy Thursday service. 

But I gave up giving up things for Lent years ago. Far better, I reasoned, to work on something that might help me better live God’s way. Did that happen?

During Holy Week, the 5 gospels accounts (for me) are:

• Matthew;
• Mark;
• Luke;
• John; and
• Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar.

They all have good source material, but Rice and Webber have the added advantage of music theater on their side. Saturday afternoon, I listen. The first half is enjoyable – I note the singers’ voices and styles – but somewhere around “Gethsemane” it becomes torturous for a fully attentive listener. I'm sure it was intended to be. (A pastor at a church I once attended preached on Palm Sunday that it’s impossible to fully experience the joy of Easter without first having gone through Holy Thursday and Good Friday. How can we celebrate resurrection if we have not walked through death?)

I didn’t go to church Friday because I couldn't bear to hear anything resembling traditional atonement theory. Atonement. You know, the reasons theologians came up with in the centuries after Jesus’ torture and execution for explaining why it had to happen. The ones that have gained traction in the last couple hundred years propose that:

• God needed a sinless Jesus to die as a sacrifice for our sin, yours and mine;
• Jesus was born for this purpose. To be a bridge, if you will, between us and the Holy;
• God is so good that having sin near God is impossible. Jesus has to wash us clean with his blood.

I won’t go on except to say that these ideas repel me. If this is god, it’s not a god I want to know or follow. Let's try instead that:

• Jesus died because religious leaders felt threatened and conspired to bring him down, working with a vicious Roman oppressor who was only too happy to do their dirty work;
• Jesus died because even though it was clear that powerful people were out to get him, he would not turn from teaching that, and treating every person as if, God loved them just as they were;
• Jesus died because he held up a mirror to people and while many saw God’s acceptance and their inherent worth, others saw that their lives were warped by one thing or another – by hatred or even the Law that they loved – and they could not bear it;
• Jesus died because people are fickle?
  We welcome the wholeness he offers us but depart without so much as a "Thanks!
  We say we'd die for him on Thursday, then deny him.
  We shout “Hosannah” on Sunday but Thursday we join the crowd for safety. We don’t want to die so we say, “Crucify him!” on cue, whether it’s two thousand years ago in Jerusalem or today when someone who looks or lives differently from us gets pulled over, seeks an abortion or escape from their hell, or…

Following Jesus is so easy. Just love everyone and everything. No buts. No exceptions. 

And that’s so hard.

Thankfully, we don’t have to get it perfect. What we need to do, what our “neighbor” needs from us, what the earth needs from us, is to be and do what we can in this moment without skimping (repeat ad infinitum). Some moments will be better than others. But you know what? That’s okay.

God makes us human. That means God makes us imperfect. And God is okay with that, loves it even. The only atonement that’s needed is for us to let God draw us in (that’s the real at-one-ment).

Blessed Easter