Christ Is Near with His Cheer

 another easter has passed.  my wife and i stayed home, visiting with our son and his girlfriend who were here for the weekend.  it was a relief not to be in church this easter sunday.  i always dread easter, especially when i have to play the service.  i've never liked easter, perhaps because my family didn't make a big deal of it when i was a child.  the easter bunny didn't come to our house delivering a basket of eggs and chocolates, as he did to my friend's homes.  i didn't envy them because of their visit by the easter bunny.  we always dyed our own easter eggs, and for me that was much more fun than having them delivered to me by a fictitious rabbit.  i didn't like to eat boiled eggs and hated hunting for easter eggs, a pastime i thought boring, even as a small child.  rather, i enjoyed looking at the pretty eggs and trying to experiment with making mine as interesting as i could.  i suppose other children thought me strange, but i didn't care.  their excitement about the coming of easter with its bunny was just as weird to me.

as an adult, i find the music of easter, with its lyrics about victory over death and the conquering jesus, somehow disturbing.  it doesn't fit with what i believe about jesus.  for me, the fact that jesus was willing to die for what he had stood for in life is heroism enough.  when i think of the death of jesus, i remember his words in john 15:13:  "greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."  and so he did, refusing to back down in the face of accusations in the sanhedrin or when brought before the roman authorities.  he was not cowed when he was ridiculed and beaten by roman soldiers, nor did he curse those who caused his death.  even as he hung on the cross in agony, he forgave his accusers and the thief hanging beside him, according to luke's gospel.

to live and die as jesus did is enough.  tales of rising from the dead, reappearing to his follower after his death, or ascending into heaven do nothing to increase my devotion to the teachings of jesus--they are a distraction from what he taught, obscuring the point of his life and death.  we like to make those who accomplish extraordinary feats something that they were not, imbuing them with supernatural powers.  maybe that is because we think that, because their accomplishments exceed ours by such a great degree, they must be more than human.  it was not enough that a human jesus inspired great devotion from his followers, challenging the foundations of the jewish religious establishment and the power of rome.  he had to be turned into a god.  following his teachings was not enough for those who were left after he was executed.  he had to be worshiped, and in the very act of his deification, his teachings were perverted into something he never intended.

may we honor the very human jesus.  may his life of humble service and his bravery in the face of his enemies inspire us to live as he taught us.  may we understand that his brief time on earth changed the course of history, not because he was God incarnate, but because he showed us that each of us could attain greatness by serving others, that "whoever would be great . . . must become a servant."  shalom.