Finding ourselves in Easter - Part 4

As part of our ongoing series on finding ourselves in the story of Easter, we continue to contemplate how various participants in the story might have seen it, and how their perspective can help us more clearly see.

In part 1, we thought about the perspective of the Roman soldiers - Jesus as irrelevant
In part 2, we thought about the perspective of Mary, Jesus's mother - Jesus as something we have been entrusted with, and the terror and grief of losing Him.
In part 3, we thought about the perspective of Pontias Pilate, the Roman governor, who wrestled with ambivalence about a potentially dangerous Jesus, who could bring changes he deeply feared.

In this final Easter post, we consider the perspective of Peter, the disciple, and the only person who is with Jesus throughout this story.

Finding ourselves in Easter - Part 3

As part of our ongoing series on finding ourselves in the story of Easter, we continue to contemplate how various participants in the story might have seen it, and how their perspective can help us more clearly see.

In part 1, we thought about the perspective of the Roman soldiers - Jesus as irrelevant
In part 2, we thought about the perspective of Mary, Jesus's mother - Jesus as something we have been entrusted with, and the terror and grief of losing Him.

In this post we consider the perspective of Pontias Pilate, the Roman governor. He had an ambivalence toward Jesus. On one hand he was interested, perhaps even curious about this unusual Jewish prophet who made such claims and did such unusual things. Jesus was unlike the other trouble makers of the time, he had an usual quality about Him that Pilate couldn’t quite put a finger on…..but at the same time this Jesus was a threat. Pilate had a little section of the Roman Empire to keep in order, and to open himself to really listening to Jesus would risk all kinds of trouble in his personal and professional life. It was just easier to get rid of him.

Finding Ourselves in Easter - Part 2

As part of an ongoing series of posts, we're thinking about how we fit in the story of Easter. In Part 1, I described how we might find ourselves in the experiences of the Roman soldiers - finding Jesus to be largely irrelevant to our lives.

In this post we contemplate Mary, the mother of Jesus, and how we can identify with her experience of that event.  

Finding ourselves in Easter - Part 1

As Easter approaches I find myself again contemplating how I fit into this story, and how this story fits into my own life.

The next few posts will involve an attempt to take the perspective of those in the story, and contemplate what we might learn from them.

Why does faith involve acting like a jerk?

I needed a little gentleness this morning. I mean in my own heart, towards others. I was experiencing a "bad church experience" hangover.

Maybe you've had them. They're those times when you go to a church and get so angry you don't want to go back.

For me it was the self-righteous attitudes of some, but not all, of the presenters. I realize I'm a self-righteous jerk on a regular basis, but I get tired of being with other people's self-righteousness.

Maybe I have an unrealistic expectation that others will have grown further than me and be able to help me or inspire me, rather than demonstrate the same ugliness I hate about myself. Maybe it's because I'm trying to find the person of Jesus lived out in other people, and when they fail, I'm disappointed.

It got me thinking, "why do so many of us who claim to follow Jesus, have such a proclivity towards being self-righteous?"

Would you drink poison?

At the end of the James Bond film Quantum of Solace there's a great scene with profound implications.

(no need for a spoiler alert - you all know how every Bond film ends)

Bond is in the desert with the key villain of the film, and before leaving him there, he gives the villain a quart of motor oil and says something like "I guarantee that you'll be drinking this within an hour".
In the final scene Bond's boss "M" tells him that the body was found with oil in its stomach.

It's gruesome yes, but it captures a reality I see on a daily basis.

MLK on Maladjustment

A profound excerpt from a speech Martin Luther King gave in 1961. It's not quite the same as hearing him speak it, but still powerful.... I fear that I have become "well adjusted" to the "economic conditions" he mentions.

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Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word; it is the word "maladjusted". Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life.

But I say to you, my friends, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all people of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize...

I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination.

I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry.

I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.

I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence.

But in a day when guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.