Easter as First Degree Murder

This week, Christians all over the world will celebrate a murder. As a matter of fact, if you want to get specific, it was a murder, a betrayal, and pretty much a lynching fueled by a bunch of self-righteous religious prigs. Thomas Merton, writing about this lynching, says that Jesus was put to death on the cross because he did not measure up to man’s conception of his holiness. I think that’s profound. Most people in my tradition will be quick to note that it was we, humankind, who really murdered Jesus. The religious and political leaders were really accessories to the crime, a crime that was first committed in a park years earlier by the first man and woman. But the murder, with its corresponding resurrection, after a short stint in the morgue, was way more than a simple homicide. It was one act in the drama of redemption where God rescues and restores his creation after things go terribly wrong.

Why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn’t God just forgive? Why the big deal about the cross? It’s really not that complex. Lets say I wreck your car. You can force me to pay for it or you can forgive me, which means you end up paying for it. Any way you cut it, someone pays! That’s life. Now, in Christianity, our offenses against God are of horrific proportions. They are way more than just wrecking his car—though I suspect he’d not like that either. These sins, as they are called, are so offensive that we are considered “hostiles” or “enemies.” In fact, by our actions, we’ve declared war on God and God declares it back! Therefore, someone is going to have to pay. Either God pays or we pay!

And because God is both infinitely loving and infinitely just, he chooses to pay for us. (He can’t be loving without being just because it would be unloving to be unjust.) So God enters our world in the person of Jesus and by his exemplary life and sacrificial death, he shows us both how to live and saves us from how we lived. Because he pays the cost of our indiscretions we don’t have to. And by his resurrection he proves that he is God and promises us what’s to come. This payment is received by faith as it would be if I wrecked your car and you chose to pay the damages. He saves us from our self-condemnation and from our self-righteousness. This has profound implications too broad for this post.

I realize that this message is not popular today. I also realize that there is an entire segment of “Christianity” that pays little attention to the propitiatory (Oooo—big word!) element of this and focuses primarily on Jesus as a good example. But that misses the point. Ghandi was a good example. Jesus claimed to be God. At any rate, it’s the reason a significant segment of the worlds population will celebrate a murder. I start celebrating Sunday.

Christmas as Breaking and Entering

God should be thrown in jail. “For what?” you may ask. For breaking and entering. In American law I think that’s more than a misdemeanor when you enter and then actually take something-which he clearly did, eventually. Let me make my point.

We are at the season when Christians everywhere celebrate this breaking and entering; God’s felony. That’s what Christmas means. God broke in—to our world. He came in uninvited. The whole Christmas story of the baby in the barn with the angels and all that is about the start of God’s heist, about his breaking and entering (which leads ultimately to a murder but I’ll talk about that in my Easter post). Most Westerners seem out of touch with the crime. I’m not sure why. I’ve had someone break into my house, and believe me it gets your attention. But in the US, it’s almost as if it didn’t really happen. And anyway, we replace what he stole pretty quickly because we just go out and get more stuff. We don’t even miss anything.

But today when we celebrate this crime, I’d like to offer one thought: in this break-in we have revealed to us the true nature and character of God. He could have broken in by smashing down doors or breaking windows or making a big scene. He didn’t. He could have come on a white horse or in a motorcade or in a tank or something like that. He didn’t. He snuck into our world looking like a snotty nosed kid who cries and poops in his pants, like every other kid. The break in was a farce on the outside, but ultimately it became an inside job. Word has it that the thief looked sort of like the picture on this post!

He broke in because we locked him out. He broke in because we’d bought a bill of goods about who he was and who we are what the future holds for humankind. Some really old writer, who seems to know what he is talking about, said that we preferred stolen fruit with our significant other to sweet friendship with the sovereign creator (Read Genesis 3 to get the full story). There were eternal consequences to our choices. So he broke in, showed up, and revealed himself to woo us back and to demonstrate clearly to everyone, even those who don’t really like him, who he was and what he was about. And, he did this in a way that no religious figure on earth has ever done.

This is what makes Christianity so unique and frankly, it is why I celebrate Christmas. And what did he ultimately steal? Our faults and flaws and sins and mistakes and everything that ruins our lives! But there is more to it than that. God’s break-in was a Robin Hood Christmas. He stole from us, who thought we were rich (when we were actually impoverished) and gives us back something much greater, if we are willing to have it. He offers us back our hope, our lives, and our true selves when we, by faith in what he accomplished through the break-in, reject our false selves, along with the sin that goes with it, and trust the criminal God (Jesus) with our lives. Trust a criminal with my life? It’s an insane idea! But, it’s Christianity. I hope anyone who actually reads this post will ponder this and celebrate the crime with joy! I plan to.

Beauty and Ugly in Hawaii

Someone died at Pipeline (a famous surf break for those who don’t know) last Sunday (March 16). I saw the ambulance go by as I drove out after Sunday service to surf at Alligator Rock and Marijuana’s on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. I heard the siren, pulled over, and let the ambulance (which was by then a hearse) race past me. I spent the next hour and a half surfing some of the most beautiful waves I’ve seen in years. Because of the direction of the swell the waves on Marijuana’s were double overhead rollers that, after riding them, deposited me in perfect position to see another break—Alligators—actually crash. The smooth, dynamic features of the curl and the way the wave broke, was like participating in a liquid dance. Back and forth, side to side, the water spilled in graceful beauty around me. I’d catch a giant roller then get a glimpse of a more complex breaker farther in without being punished for looking and getting too close. The sun, the wind, the warmth, the water all pointed me to a beauty beyond myself.

Then there was the siren, the ambulance, the grief of a family who lost a son, a brother, a boyfriend way too early in life. The kid they pulled out from Pipeline was maybe 23. He was a body boarder. The son of a friend of mine gave the guy C.P.R. but to no avail. For all I know maybe my friend’s son, a professional lifeguard, had to risk his own life to pull the body boarder out of the water! It was beauty and ugly in stark relief!! Isn’t this life?! One event, the death of a young surfer, points to the brokenness of this world because of our sin. The other event, surfing some of the most beautiful waves in the world, points to the beauty that can be ours in Christ. I’m unashamedly a follower of Jesus and on this resurrection day, I see the waves pointing towards the giver of new life: Jesus Christ. My wish is that he’d transform me into something as beautiful as those waves! Happy Easter.