Easter sermons tend to have either charged messages of sinners and salvation or half-latent liturgies about second chances and engaging fully in life.
Fundamentalists teach this is the day Christ was resurrected after dying for the forgiveness of our sins. Those tipping the left of the religious balance, attempt to pen sermons that touch upon the values of the story of the resurrection, such as rebirth in whatever that means for any given person at any given time.
I find myself right there in the middle.
Wanting both the probable teaching of Christ-the-Humanitarian and practical acknowledgment of how it applies to us today as Christians, Shaman, Witches, Atheists, Muslims, Jews, Humanists, etc. I want to have the “Hope of the Resurrection” without the new age meandering around the violent story in a delicate dance, nor the hail, fire and brimstone of traditional Easter messages.
I have long since shed the willingness to believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Certainly as it relates to this particular story and its lineage of stories contained therein:
—Evil Satan-Snake convinces Weak-minded Eve to eat the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and then the sinful Woman coerced perfect Adam to also eat from the Tree then they and all their offspring were doomed for ever. UNTIL this vengeful God who created them placed in an asterisk clause in his Rules equivalent to any modern-day hybrid sci-fi vampiric war tale listing “Blood for Blood” as acceptable atonement for a wrongdoing.
Enter Jesus.
And the belief that Christ giving up his humanly life because
we
are
all
Sinners.—
This story perpetuates so many things I abhor. So many things many of my feminist friends (male and female) abhor. It also promotes the idea that we inherit the wrongdoings of our biological lineage and keeps people engaged in a “violence-mentality” which is in opposition to all Peace efforts that are ever successful.
In a world where we are fraught with violence – quietly in the homes of our neighbors, loudly in the news and the nations, and silently in the places where we do not even want to admit violence exists, wouldn’t we be better served by a message of meeting wrongdoing with peaceableness, rather than violence?
Let’s plant many trees of knowledge
and of wisdom
and of peace
and of compassion
and of kindness, gentleness and freedom.
Let’s tell the tale of Jesus as we would of any other remarkable man or woman who walked this planet.
Yes, it is a story of rebirth.
Of freedom of past stories and creating better consequences of mistakes.
Of resurrection.
This is a choice we each have
every
single
day.
We demonstrate our choice by how we behave. How we speak. How we align ourselves with our highest potential. How we honor ourselves and each other.
Our resurrection is not something any one person can do for us. But the doorway to such resurrection can be revealed by others. As it has been by the Christ, and the Buddha, and John Lennon, and Henry David Thoreau, and Ani DeFranco, and Louise Hay, and Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Maya Angelou and Anne Bradstreet and Mary Oliver and so many many more dead and living Way Showers – those who we know collectively because they are famous…as well as those who we meet in passing and have presently in our daily lives.
We are each other’s teachers.
We are each other’s Christs.
At least that is my current opinion.
The best thing I heard during this year’s Easter Sermon, was this:
“What you love can always bring you back to life.” Rev. Nancee Campbell.
This brought goosebumps to my skin as soon as she said it!
“What you love can always bring you back to life.”
May our lives be infused by that which we love most. May our works, words and deeds reflect the resurrection we choose. Amen.
Happy Easter,
~ Twinkle
Photo-credit:
http://faithandheritage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/celtic-cross.jpg
Originally posted: April 6, 2015