WE ARE WHO WE ARE

Contrary to an old, old commercial it's not what's up front that counts. I have long since forgotten the product but only remember the commercial's punch line. Being up front, visible, seen, isn't always, if ever, what is most important. As with a really beautiful woman: beauty lies not in what's up front – face and figure – but what's beneath, inside. What's up front may be enticing. But often what's up front conceals rather than reveals.

It is very tempting for us to want to, and in fact to actually put on false fronts so that we seem to appear other than we are because we somehow seem to feel that that is what is expected of us or that that is what is necessary to get ahead, to succeed. And it may work for a while; but sooner or later the charade has to cease. When it does, the real person hiding behind that false front, hidden behind the mask, that real person will eventually emerge, perhaps much to our immediate dismay but certainly to our everlasting relief. Playing games with reality may be fun, exciting, even dangerous, for a while. But in the long run it only causes grief.

That real person is the one deep inside us: the one with all those good qualities, and some bad faults as well. For no one of us is perfect. No one of us is better than anyone else. We are all equal as people. And that is what really counts – not what is up front. But that is only for starters. That is where we begin. For we cannot begin to become what we have the potential to become until we realize that, even with our failings and shortcomings, we are fantastic people – God's children. Behind that false front, underneath that mask is a child of God.

I know: we've heard all that before. Pious words, encouraging words, but words nevertheless. And words simply do not do it sometimes. Right? We can all preach a good sermon. Living it is another matter. We can all profess a great faith. Living out that faith is much more difficult. We can all believe that the internal is much more important that the external; but sometimes we are not so sure.

We are constantly bombarded by hucksters selling us their brand of, their formula for success, be it through personal enrichment courses, wearing the right clothes, or even turning to Jesus and having him as our personal Lord and Savior. The solutions to success all seem easy, simple and the thing to do. They are not. The only way we are a success is by being the person God created us to be; not by listening to Madison Avenue – or to anyone else who would like to make us into their own image and likeness. We can't be like someone else. We can only be ourselves.

We can't even be like Jesus. We can learn from him but we cannot be like him. That may sound heretical if not pure hogwash. But I don't think it is. You see, trying to be like someone else prevents us from being and becoming the person God created us as. For what our faith teaches us, what Jesus taught us – and still does through the Scriptures – is that we are to be who we are and not who or what someone else is or what others want us to be.

The Army wants us to be all that we can be in the Army. Well, wherever. The only way we can be all that we can be is by being ourselves and not someone else. Jesus taught us that. He was who he was and no one else. He didn't try to be what society said he should be. He didn't try to be what his disciples wanted him to be. He was himself, no more and no less. So must we. And that's what really counts, now and always.

DEATH TO LIFE

We are all born to live to die to live again. We do it every day. Every day we are born anew, live a full day's life, and then end that day as we fall off to sleep. In sleep the day is done. The day is dead. And tomorrow there is new life. Tomorrow there is resurrection.

It is an endless cycle until the final resurrection, until eternity. Until then we die a thousand deaths. In fact, each passing moment is life-death-resurrection-to-new-life. Each part of that cycle is important. Each leads to the next. Each depends on the other.           

Easter is the celebration of Jesus's new life, a life that would not and did not come without Good Friday, without his death. That is what makes what happened on Friday in some/any way good. Murder is never good. The unjust murder of an innocent person is never good. The only good is that for the one murdered there is resurrection to new life. That may not be a comforting thought when in the midst of the grief of the tragedy, but it is still the truth.

           
And sometimes that knowledge is the only belief, the only truth that gets us through the moment, through the grief, through all those unanswered and unanswerable questions. Perhaps that is why as Christians, as those who celebrate the events of Holy Week, we don't dwell on Good Friday, on Jesus's death. We are thankful for it, to be sure. But we know that in Jesus’ death there is the forgiveness of our sins; in his death there is the promise of new life for us.           

Easter is a joyful celebration and reminder that death always leads to life, new life and, it is to be hoped, a better life. We always hope that tomorrow will be better than today, no matter how good today has been. We certainly hope tomorrow will be better if today has seemed like Good Friday. And tomorrow can be because tomorrow brings new life, brings resurrection.

          
Easter is also a reminder that it is not all up to us to make tomorrow better. If it were, we would fail. The reason that our todays sometimes seem so bad, seem like Good Fridays, is that we all too often want to be in control instead of allowing God to help us though the day, even through the bad. Jesus did not raise himself. He was raised from the dead, from death to new life by and in and through God.

We do not discover new life, make new life, all on our own. It is God who gives us each new day. It is God who resurrects us to new life each new day. And it should be with and in and through God that we meet each new day. That may sound and seem so simple. And it is. Unfortunately, if you are like me, it becomes more difficult to do because I want to be in charge of the resurrection process and in charge of the new day. So often I only call on God when I've made a mess of today. And then my only hope is that tomorrow, with God’s help, is a new day, a new Easter.

Easter comes every day for you and for me. As God was in charge of that first Easter, so we need to allow God to be in charge of our daily Easters. Then maybe we won’t have so many bad Fridays that need God’s help to be made into Easter Sundays.

NONE OF OUR HANDS ARE INNOCENT

As we come closer to the celebration – yes, celebration! – of Good Friday, it might be good for each of us to remember, realize and confess that we had a hand in Jesus’ death. That's the bad news. Henri Nouwen in his prayer Heart Speaks to Heart puts it this way.
  
"O Jesus, I look into my own heart and at my own hands….And can I truly say that my hands are clean? So often have they been instruments of greed and lust, of impatience and anger, of accusation and recrimination. I know they have often been used to strike instead of caress; I know they have often formed fists instead of making a sign of peace and reconciliation. I know how often they have taken instead of given and have pointed an accusing finger at others instead of beating my own breast. I know how often they have made signs of cursing instead of signs of peace. There is blood on my hands, too, even when I do not see it. I cannot wash my hands in innocence. Sinful, guilty and deeply ashamed, I can only stand under your cross, knowing that my hands are the hands of a blood-stained humanity."
        
That's the bad news: no one of us is innocent. We all have blood on our hands, Jesus's blood. The good news is that we have been forgiven. The paradox is that if we had not participated in Jesus's death, there would be no forgiveness of our sins. No, I don't understand it any more than you do. How can we? I – we – simply believe it. We believe in the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus's death on the cross.
        
And so we can all give thanks that in spite of our continued and continual sinfulness, a life of sin that will never end until this life ends, we are still, always, forgiven. No, I don't understand that any more than you do, either. How can we always be forgiven: always, no matter what?
           
The answer is the Cross. The only answer is the cross and God’s unconditional love for each and every one of us. Anything else, any other answer, any other explanation, comes up short. The death of God the Son on the cross, for you and for me is the only explanation possible. Left to our own understanding, left, especially, to our own personal experiences of sin and forgiveness, we'd all be left out in the dark. We don't so easily forgive others let alone easily forgive ourselves. But God does; always.
           
It makes no sense, of course, in this world where a crime demands, calls out, for a punishment; a sin calls out, cries out, demands at least an eye for an eye. If we think turning the other cheek is a tough sell, try forgiving everyone all the time with no demand for retribution or punishment. That won't play in Peoria – or anywhere else for that matter.
 
Except at the foot of the cross, where we all stand, looking up at the One who is hanging there, dying for our sins, yours and mine, and says to God, "Father, forgive them. They really don't know what they are doing. Father, forgive them, even if they do know what they are doing." That is why Good Friday and what happened on Good Friday is truly a cause for celebration.

TO LOVE IS TO SUFFER

No one likes to be in pain, any kind of pain: physical, mental, emotional, whatever. Yes, there are those who like to play the martyr, but those who do deserve the pain they are in. True martyrs accept the pain that is inflicted because they are enduring what they are doing because of a higher cause, such as those who suffered gross indignities, physical pain and even death during the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s. They were, indeed, true martyrs to the cause.

A martyr, of course, is a witness, which is the real meaning of the word that has devolved into meaning someone who dies for one’s faith or beliefs. But one does not have to die to be a witness. In fact, sometimes being a living witness is more difficult and more painful than actually dying for one’s beliefs. There are those who suffer for years because of what they believe. For them often death might seem to be the easy way out.

The further truth is that anyone who loves is a martyr in the sense that to love is to suffer. Think about it. Think about the things we do for love. Many of them involve suffering, often painful suffering. Raising children is never easy and is often painful. We get out of bed at two in the morning because our child is in pain. We stay awake until two in the morning until our kids get home. It is painful but we do it, we suffer, because of our love for our children.

When the ones we love are in pain, we suffer along with them. When they do something to hurt us or hurt themselves, we suffer. When my Mom had to punish my siblings and me for things we did which we knew we should not have done, she used to say, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” even as we felt the sting of the wooden spoon across ur hands and wrists. We didn’t believe her are the time but we learned the truth of what she said when we became parents.

When those we love hurt others, do what we have taught them not to do, hurt themselves because of their foolish decisions, we suffer. We did not stop them because we could not stop them. They were free to make their own decisions and suffer the consequences. But, again, we suffered along with them just as our parents suffered along with us. To love is to suffer and there is no escape. It does with the territory, if you will.

And while we may think we have suffered a great deal in our lives because of the words and actions of those we love, think about how much God suffers. Sometimes I think we think God does not suffer, that God is above it all, especially if we believe God should intervene and prevent anyone from doing anything that would cause any kind of pain to themselves or to anyone else.

God suffers every minute of every day because God is Love and God loves each and every one of us unconditionally. And like us, his beloved children who suffer when the ones we love hurt or are hurt, so, too, does God. The temptation is to think it is better not to love than to suffer the consequences. But as we have learned, it is better to love and suffer the pain that sometimes comes with it than to live in even more painful loneliness.