Easter Reflection

I thought I set this to publish automatically but obviously that didn't work out so it's late but this is my  Easter post.

 Over the years I have made it a practice to acknowledge Easter as a Christian festival rather than the cultural festival we all know and love. Today I continue the tradition.

Over the years I have wrestled with dogma and theology. "Jesus died for my sin" was the line I was brought up with. Churchy kids still parrot it. It's almost but not quite as fail-safe as the plain "Jesus" as the default answer to all Sunday School questions.

Then one day some online stranger wrote that teaching kids that their naughtiness was responsible for the death of an innocent is abuse. I wondered why I never thought of that.

I hate the philosophy that everyone is a sinner. I believe that most people want to be decent. I believe that our bad behaviours are often related to our education and life experience. I believe that culpability is on a spectrum. I had this conversation with a friend some years ago and I suspect he was a bit shocked by my rabid departure from standard teaching but in a moment of grace he reframed "everyone is a sinner" to "we are all selfish." Maybe I'm playing semantics but it feels more accurate and less accusatory.

We are all selfish would lead to "Jesus died because I'm selfish". Still quite a call.

I can be accused of New Age Heresy and I have many times been accused of soft, woke, liberalism.

Well, as insults they are pretty weak, unless of course one doesn't want to see justice and equality in the world.

Two thousand years ago, a revolutionary was tortured and killed because he disrupted the status quo, challenged the oppressor and valued the marginalised. 
After he died, there were eyewitness accounts of his resurrection.

I don't follow Jesus because he "died for my sins"

I follow Jesus because he stood up for women and children.

I follow Jesus because he modelled love.

I follow Jesus because he saw the unseen and touched the unclean.

I follow Jesus because he never glossed over hardship.

I follow Jesus because he suffered as we all do and throughout he was loving, strong, charitable and humble.

I follow Jesus because his story modelled all that is good and all that is bad in humanity but ends in the most unlikely, most hoped for, joyous, miraculous LIFE.

I follow Jesus because he is validation, inspiration and hope.

I hope that you all have a glimmer of hope at all the times you need it.

Happy Easter