Easter and Christianity’s Bum Rap

“‘What is reality? What is the infinite?’ we ask while looking at the sky through a straw."

--Lama Surya Das

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

--Benjamin Franklin

We are taxed (“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,” Mark 12:17), we die. Beyond those two certainties, we try to make something out of our brief time on Earth.

Surya Das has such a simple and profound way of expressing how little we know about life. Humility, in the face of what we don’t know. Humility, knowing we can’t do it alone, we need help.

So we try as part of something larger. Christianity is such a humble religion. We are forgiven, we are loved, God is love, we are inspired to love others, join with others. Prayer helps take us beyond ourselves into service to others. Pull yourself together (you are already forgiven and loved), act (love).

Christianity isn’t the only path to love, but it is a path to action, and it has worked imperfectly (humans, after all) for two millennia. It speaks to Westerners through people such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Catherine Clark Kroeger.

We are taught to love, not hate, to turn the other cheek, not to kill, lie, or steal, and taught that the greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

We have a way; it's toward action. We live in a post-Christian nation in a post-Christian time, and that is fine. What we don’t know humbles us, but we do have faith in love.