Lent: Reflection 5

We read the passion in church this morning. The congregation acts as the crowd, rising up against Jesus, calling out "crucify him!". Later in the reading Jesus is put to death, and the church sits in silence after he breathes his last breath. I had a deep, emotional response to this. I sat there thinking about how Jesus made people uncomfortable, that he was a mirror for them, allowing them to see their own divinity, allowing them to see God's radical acceptance and love for them. Jesus made it impossible for people to ignore the ways that they were sleeping and how much more fulfilling it could be to really live...and I apologize for using a term that's been trademarked by a fundamentalist bestseller...purpose filled lives. It was so threatening for people to see that and to recognize the total change it would require to live authentically that they killed him. Maybe they hoped it would kill the part of them that so desperately yearned for what they saw in him. Freedom. Real love. Harmony. I thought about the part of me that is threatened by God's love for me...threatened, I guess, by how wonderful I am to God and what it means to have that divine spark inside of me. I thought about the ways I seek to deny and kill my divinity just so I don't have to own up to the responsibility of it. And then I thought about Easter. I know that I'm getting ahead of myself, since holy week is just beginning, but the idea of Easter, the idea that Jesus rose again, that he couldn't be killed, is so hopeful. It makes me believe that I have endless opportunities to embrace the light within, that even if one day I try to kill it, it will be resurrected over and over again. Amen.