Good Friday, and what follows
For some, Easter is the time when the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are remembered as a tradition we grew up with. For others, it's to be celebrated because it's a long weekend that marks the point where summer is upon us (which really does affect my mood). The weather happens to be sunny and relatively warm outside, for the first time in months, as I type this. I thought it's a fitting time to write about my understanding (which could be right or wrong) of what Easter means to me.
For most my life, I struggled to understand what Christianity is about, though it was something I grew up with, and some relatives are practising Catholics. The Easter story seemed like a fairy tale when I was young - a very strange fairy tale - with a happy ending that involved the good guy winning over the bad guys. Apparently quite a few adults took the story seriously, I learned as a teenager. It made even less sense when they proclaimed that God sent His only begotten son to die for our sins. Why? How did that work? Why would a loving God do such a thing? None of the answers given to me were really answers.
Though I have little time for organised religion, I'm convinced that Jesus lived, gained a following and was crucified by the Romans at the demand of the religious authorities. They are historical facts, in my opinion, being relatively well-documented by people who heard about it from those with first-hand knowledge of Jerusalem in ~30AD. It's a little hard to convince people of what apparently happened after that. The Apostles themselves sincerely believed that Jesus went missing from the tomb, and a few days later somehow materialised among them in a locked room, alive and well. It was that belief, or that experience, that changed them. What are we to make of this?
In the historical context, I believe the crucifixion happened simply because the religious authorities saw Jesus as a threat. Indeed, it would seem the Apostles themselves thought they were following a political messiah during Jesus' ministry, only later realising that wasn't the case. I've heard it said that Judas came to understand this earlier than the others, which was the motivation for his betrayal. Crucifixion was a very public, intentionally barbaric and humiliating method of execution, and an effective way of discouraging others from rebelling against the Roman authorities. The sign on the cross saying 'King of the Jews' in several languages served as a warning to other would be messiahs.
There is a theological reason, which I also believe, for what happened: God became incarnate as a human person, to live amongst us and share in our joys, sufferings, weaknesses, etc. No longer would He be some abstract deity to be honoured in temples where only the 'worthy' may enter, but instead a flesh-and-blood person who chose to live among humanity, including the poor, marginalised and outcast. God did this, knowing He'd eventually face the injustice and cruelty humanity is capable of, and used that as a means of showing us there is a power that can defeat all that and give everyone who believes the promise of eternal life. For those of us who genuinely believe in the Resurrection, the natural world is just a part of a supernatural reality - perhaps a more concrete reality - in which everything is made right, and there is a God who can fix things that seem unfixable.
And somewhere between the realist and the theological explanations for Jesus' death is the idea that humanity is predisposed, because it is fallen, to reject the truth and justice God calls us to. We collectively don't want the radical changes and sacrifices it would require. Even in many churches today, pastors buy into the 'culture war' crap that nobody cares about, and they rail against homosexual sin and transgenderism ('speaking truth in love' they call it), while the majority keep voting for a neoliberal government that serves the haves at the expense of the have nots. Catholic Social Teaching encourages us to strive for a society in which every human person loved for who they are, and that requires listening to the outsider and trying to understand his or her experiences - doing this, instead of believing what's said about the outsider by the Corporate Media, can be a revolutionary act in itself. Seeing all the uncharitable things said by professing Christians on social media, and the misconceptions, about those who are different, I've learned that it's near impossible to speak truth in love without that understanding.
From the lowly shepherds who announced His arrival, to the untouchable lepers, to the women who went to the tomb, the Gospel paints a picture of Jesus identifying Himself with the poor, the suffering and those society had left behind, and He calls us to lift them up.