Easter people

A lot of people who really seem to get this Jesus thing are those people who have been so down and out that there's really no place lower to go. We recognize each other sometimes without even having to swap stories- I encounter a more than usual amount of tenderness in her eyes, an extra bit of care in his tone of voice. There's a level of pain, an experience of incomprehensible hurt that brings these things out in us. The thing is, I think more people have access to this than actually grasp it. It's not just the pain that softens us, it's the acceptance of that pain- hurting, sitting with it, experiencing it, feeling it.

I was asked to participate in the Palm Sunday service (March 16) at Crossings. I really like being a part of things on stage, so I accepted. I had some misgivings about what Bill and Mark wanted me to do- specifically, smearing and splattering black and red paint all over a picture of Jesus and therefore destroying it- but I decided to go ahead with it. We walked through it before the service, getting blocking down, coordinating our movements with the music. Mark made it very clear that what he wanted was for us to beat the canvas where Jesus' face was soon to be painted- sling paint on it, destroy it as thoroughly and violently as we could without actually getting paint on the stage or knocking the canvas over. hmmm... Did I really want to be that agent of destruction, however symbolic? No. But am I in reality a force with that destructive potential, in more than a symbolic nature? Yes.

We finished the run-through. I wasn't feeling it, but I'd signed on, so there I went. When the time came to go through with it, when the music swelled and signaled our first dramatic strike on the canvas, I found myself more than able to act out this violence. My misgivings were nowhere in sight as I wailed on the canvas, portrayed utter contempt as I slung paint from my hands onto Jesus' face, as I smeared paint over it and obliterated the image. My body was expressive as was my face: I really got into it. I surprised myself again at how easily destruction comes to me, how easily I can hurt the One who loves me. Thinking about this, realizing that it wasn't just that particular group of Jewish people or Ananias or Caiaphas or even Pilate who crucified Jesus, but that I did is important and true... and I don't want to own up to it at all.

I've been reading What's So Amazing about Grace? by Philip Yancey, and I'm really enjoying it - drinking deep, so to speak. He points out that a lot of Christians want to convert government and politics to their cause, to intertwine functions of state with the gospel, even though it was government & politics mixed with religion (Judaism) that played the major role in the Roman state's execution of Jesus. I think this impulse to mix government and religion, thereby sanctioning our own stance and world view, is at least partly fueled by our nonacceptance of our own guilt, of our own compliance in Jesus' death. It's a humbling thing to sit with the knowledge that my sin hurt the God who is ever so gracious in His love for me. We all shout, "Crucify Him!": Jews, gentiles, Christians, atheists, pagans, the whole lot of us. Jesus said to his disciples that the world would hate them as it hated him. And as followers of Jesus, we resist this hate. It's not much of a surprise. I refuse to look at and sit with my own rejection of Jesus, my own sin. Spiritually, I am a marathon runner. I run from pain, from hurt, from confrontation, from anything that might reveal my act of sin. But in doing so, I avert my own healing. By His stripes we are healed. Healing comes through the acceptance of my own pain and hurt, both that which I've given and that which I've received. I have to accept and experience my own pain in order to heal. Quite frankly, I hate that; it scares me. But Jesus accepted His cup, a cup far more bitter than mine, and was raised to life. If I drink the cup I've been given, I trust that I can and shall be healed.

So what it all boils down to is that Cee-Lo is badass. There's a song by Gnarls Barkley called "Smiley Faces" that's amazing and pertinent and true: "Your worries and fears become your friends, and they end up smiling at you." If I'm really going to be an Easter people, if I'm really going to live a resurrection life, I've got to absorb the weight, the gravity of Good Friday and the Saturday in between them. I've got to go through the darkness to live in the light.

And yes, I did just make "people" a singular noun.