Here on this Good Friday when Christians remember and observe
the difficult journey of Jesus to the Cross I hope his followers will go deeper
into the meaning of that scene.
I have said I don’t believe in an actual bodily resurrection
of Jesus. But the Cross remains for me a
fundamental part of my understanding of authentic religious truth. It carries for me a definition and a
demonstration of love that moves and challenges and instructs me. It says, here was an example of genuine human
love, so unfettered with moral demands or religious requirements or doctrinal
expectations that it was simply offered with nothing but compassion for
everyone even those who brought love to that cruel place.
Let us remember that Jesus was misunderstood, too; mostly by the
religious crowd of his day. He did not
fit into their theological definitions, their moral guidelines, their political
agendas or their class structure. He was
considered a misfit, a trouble maker, a foolish idealist. Although brilliant and imminently educated he
kept companionship with the poor, the sick, the disabled, the addicted, the lonely
and the left out. He did not socialize
with the powerful or the wealthy; rather he often sat in squalor and cradled
the diseased or mingled with children in play or visited the mentally ill or
those in prison.
His was a life of amazing love, gentleness, grace and
openheartedness. But it was also a life
of great courage; a life dedicated to social change; a life of what Yale
professor Harold Bloom has called “spiritual ferocity.”
I wish we could remember that
life. Religion should not be simply
a claim of truth but a search for it as well.
Christianity should not be a competition between religions in which it
attempts to defeat its opponents, but rather a way of life that seeks no harm
to others, that is built around justice and humanitarianism and deep
compassion. Shouldn’t it dare to love
others completely? Everyone? Shouldn’t it make the world safe for human
differences?
That is the message I get from the life and death of Jesus. I would like to make an attempt to live by
that example. Not so I can go to
heaven. Not in order to be always right. Not to elevate myself above any other single
person or group. But just because it
makes such good sense to try and live that way. And because it gives life a valiant, worthwhile purpose.
English author and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, once said,
“Create all the happiness you are able to create and remove all the misery you
are able to remove.”
That’s a pretty good description of the life that today
people remember ended in love on a cross.
© 2013 Timothy Moody
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