I will give this Easter Message at the Ascension Commandery Easter Observance. If you are going to attend that you may not want to read this post. jEaster is the most important day in the Christian Calendar. It is the day when death was shown to the world as a mockery. The day when tradition tells us that Jesus rose from the dead to live again – to walk among his brethren and to be seen and touched by them.
The Jewish religion had an early tradition of sacrifice and atonement for sins. Once each year they would symbolically place their sins on the back of a goat and drive it out into the wilderness to perish. They called that the Scapegoat. Christians place Jesus in that office. They feel that he came to die for them and take their sins away.
I have a little different “take” on the whole season of Easter. The message of Easter to me is one of love and forgiveness. God does not require a scapegoat. He did not send his Son so that we could be “saved” by his death. In His death He showed us how to live and how to treat others. Jesus forgave us all because “We knew not…”
He suffered the most horrible form of death and torture practiced by the Romans. He did it without complaint, constantly thinking of others. He blamed no one for what was happening to him. I don’t think he wanted to suffer this way but he did it and in so doing he showed mankind that death had no power over him and because it had no more power we need not be afraid of it.
His spiritual nature was such that the material world held no sway over him. He was able to forgive much and He condemned nothing other than hypocrisy. He told us to “judge not” and to “Be not afraid” He ate with publicans and sinners and his harshest words were for those hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees – the fundamentalists of their day -- who would rule their people with fear and hate rather than with love.
He came to give us a new Law of Love.
He knew that God had “made everything that was made” and it was “very good” and in that goodness he saw things to love. He did not see two criminals on the crosses beside him as he was crucified – but rather two children of God. Children who had “sinned” or “missed the mark” but who were worthy of his love and were thus redeemed because of that love. While there, he took time in his agony to see to it that his mother would be cared for. He was recognized as a good man. He saw all, even a woman taken in adultery, as worthy of his care and love.
His Father was not some “invisible cloud being” who was going to rain down fire and brimstone on his creation. He was a loving caring parent who sent Jesus to show us how to love. How to deal with our fellows in that love and, if we turn a blind eye to his message, we are the ones who fail. His is a constant love. Never ceasing.
We can, each of us learn to love as God loves – unconditionally, condemning no one not even those who think of us as their enemies. I had an opportunity to learn that lesson as I was driving back from Boston several years ago. Someone had done something that made me sad and angry. As I drove across half of this wonderful country that we live in I began to think of this person and what she had done. I realized that the only thing I could do to help the situation was just to keep on loving her. Not to be angry or to demean her but just simply to love. Healing is still coming because I listened to that message of Love. I sometimes forget that lesson but when I do remember and bring LOVE to bear on any situation the goodness comes through and healing comes.
Jesus brought God’s message to us. Easter reminds us of that message every year and on this anniversary of that message we need to listen – to listen and to Love. That is, after all what it is all about.
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