Praying for the next pope.

Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, died Easter Monday. You probably knew this already; his funeral and interment has been all over the news.

Likewise the church’s process of picking his successor: All the cardinals under the age of 80 have to go to Vatican City for the conclave, the process where they’re locked in the Sistine Chapel, and vote for a Catholic man—any Catholic man; he doesn’t have to be a cardinal—to be the new pope. They keep voting till one of their candidates gets a majority. Used ballots get thrown in a stove and burned; they add a little something to the fire to make the smoke white or black. Black means they’re still voting; white means they’ve picked a guy. If he accepts the job, he’s the new pope; if he doesn’t, back to voting.

Catholics are of course praying the cardinals pick a good guy. Praying the Holy Spirit lead the cardinals to pick a good guy. (Praying the cardinals even listen to the Holy Spirit. True, men are made cardinals for all sorts of reasons; some of those reasons have admittedly been political. But hopefully all were chosen because they’re good examples of following Jesus.)

And, as I’ve pointed out to some of my fellow non-Catholics, we should be praying the cardinals pick a good guy.

I get various responses to that:

• “Already am!”
• “…Oh! Yeah, I should be praying the cardinals pick a good guy.”
• “…What? Why should I pray for that? I’m not Catholic.”
• “What?” [followed by scoffing] “Who cares who they pick.”

You can obviously tell which of the responses are the anti-Catholic ones.

God is not too busy for your prayers.

Honestly, I’ve never heard anyone state, “But God’s too busy to listen” as the reason they don’t pray. They might feel it, or secretly deep down believe it… but they don’t say this.

Because while they may not know squat about God, they are fully he’s almighty. Even pagans describe him as almighty. He has the power to effortlessly handle the volume of eight billion prayers a minute; basic divine almightiness includes the ability to juggle infinite conversations. They know that at least.

They might’ve seen the movie Bruce Almighty, in which God (played by Morgan Freeman) grants Bruce Nolan (played by Jim Carrey) his powers. Bruce also has to hear all the prayers God does, and he can’t handle the volume. (God later explains he’s aware Bruce can’t handle the prayers of the whole planet, so he just limited Bruce to his hometown. That’s still a lot—and Bruce can’t handle that either.) So they might suspect God can’t give each individual prayer the attention we’d like him to. But they still know God, as popularly described by both Christians and non-Christians, can so give each individual prayer his attention. ’Cause they know Bruce isn’t God… and for that matter neither is Morgan Freeman.

So yeah, this “God’s too busy” line is one people already know isn’t true. May struggle to believe it, but know it’s not true. May have to be reminded of the fact it’s not true, just a little… but only a little. Well here ya go: Your little reminder.

In my experience, whenever people say God’s not listening, they never say it’s because God can’t handle the prayer traffic. Instead they presume he’s not listening for other reasons. Usually a petty or silly one, like “I prayed wrong” or “I’m not worthy”—as if God only answers the prayers of the deserving, and that’s not them.

Because even little pagan kids know God’s not too busy to hear their prayers. Their ideas about God may have entirely come from popular culture, but pop culture nonetheless conveys the idea God hears all. Kinda like Santa Claus! Santa sees you when you’re sleeping, knows when you’re awake, knows if you’ve been bad or good… yet for some reason doesn’t know what you want for Christmas till you go to the shopping mall and tell him, but little kids never really think about that particular inconsistency. Anyway God’s at least as omniscient as Santa, and isn’t too busy to hear everything you’ve told him.

So it’s probably an utter waste of time for me to write an article about why God’s not too busy for our prayers: People already know otherwise! But I’m not gonna rule out the possibility, however small, that there’s some doubting Christian out there who somehow got the idea God’s just too busy for them.

Christians in slavery.

1 Corinthians 7.21-24.

As you likely know, slavery was practiced in bible times. It was part of ancient cultures’ criminal justice systems: If you broke the law, or were on the wrong side in a war, they’d either kill you, fine you, or enslave you. They didn’t do penitentiaries; their prisons either held people for trial, or held slaves.

Occasionally people object to the scriptures, and the apostles, because they didn’t fight slavery, nor declare it sin. To a large degree they didn’t have to. Plenty of scriptures mandated that Hebrews and Christians treat slaves humanely, treat Christian slaves like Christian family, and once they’ve worked off their debts to society, grant them freedom. And American slavery demonstrated that plenty of depraved people will distort or ignore the scriptures for their evil gain, claim to be Christian nonetheless, and eagerly go to war to keep people in chains.

Roman slavery was better than American slavery, but was still rife with abuse, evil, rape, and murder. Just because it happened in the bible, and in many ways is even a biblical principle—as we’ll see in today’s passage—does not mean slavery should still exist. All the more reason we needed to abolish it, and should continue to fight slavery and human trafficking where we find it.

Anyway. The last passage of 1 Corinthians I looked at, was about how Christians—well, male Christians—oughta remain in the same state of ritual circumcision they were in when they came to Jesus. If you’re a circumcised Jew, remain one; if you’re an uncircumcised gentile, remain one. You don’t need to change for Jesus. Work with the situation you’re in.

Today: Same thing if you’re a slave or freeman.

1 Corinthians 7.21-24 KWL

21Were you a slave when God called?

Don’t you mind.

But if you’re able to become free,

behave yourself all the more!

22For a slave called by the Master

is a freeman in the Master.

Likewise a freeman called by the Master

is the Master’s slave.

23You are properly purchased.

Don’t become slaves to people.

24Each person is in the place

where they were called, fellow Christians;

remain there, with God.

If you were a slave when you became Christian, Paul and Sosthenes say, “Don’t you mind.” 1Co 7.21 Slavery doesn’t disqualify you from God’s kingdom. It definitely limits how and where you can minister; your slaveholder has to grant permission, same as the warden of a prison, the case officer of a parolee, or the parent of an undisciplined child. If your slaveholder says you can’t, you really can’t.

But at the same time: Don’t you mind. Don’t worry about it. God is fully aware of your situation, and what you can and can’t do. And he has final say, not your slaveholder.

Make peace with your enemies.

Matthew 5.25-26, Luke 12.57-59.

In the scriptures, sins against others tend to be compared with debts. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Mt 6.12 KJV This was because among the ancients, a debt was the fastest way to fall into deep, deep trouble.

Y’see, if you borrowed money and didn’t pay it back when you agreed to, the ancients had the attitude that you never did mean to pay it back. You deceived your creditor into giving you money. You committed fraud; that’s a sin. Lv 19.13 You committed theft; that’s a sin. Lv 19.11 You’re a criminal. And what did the ancients do with criminal debtors? Sold ’em into slavery, and their purchase price would pay the debt. What if your own purchase price didn’t cover the debt? Usually they’d sell as many of your family members into slavery as would cover the debt.

In some countries, like the Roman Empire, government officials would frequently buy you. ’Cause the Romans had tons of civic projects to work on. They built impressive stuff, and built it to last; lots of it is still standing. They’d build roads, aqueducts, amphitheaters, harbors, public toilets, public baths; anything they figured might bring Roman civilization to the public. Stuff that’d remind them it was good to live under Roman rule. The crucifixions alongside all the main roads would remind them it wasn’t so good to defy it.

And when I say “they built impressive stuff,” I mean Roman slaves built it. Then at night, they’d lock these slaves in prison lest they run away.

That is the historical background to what Jesus is talking about in this teaching from his Sermon on the Mount—and its parallel teaching in Luke. We know this has to do with debt, ’cause Jesus talks about paying the last quadrans in Matthew, or the last lepton in Luke. These weren’t fines; Romans didn’t bother with fines unless they knew you had money, and prison would never be an issue. The sort of case Jesus is talking about here, are debts.

Matthew 5.25-26 KWL

25“Be reconciled with your opponent quickly

while you’re still on the road to court,

lest they hand you over to the judge,

the judge hand you over to his servant,

and you will be thrown into prison.

26Amen! I promise you:

You’re not coming out of there

till you’ve paid the last quadrans.”

Luke 12.57-59 KWL

57“Why can’t you judge what’s right on your own?

58For while you go with your opponent to the ruler,

while you’re still on the road to court,

make an effort to settle things between you,

lest they drag you before the judge,

the judge hand you over to the bailiff,

and the bailiff will throw you into prison.

59I tell you:

You may never come out of there

till you’ve paid the last lepton.”

In case you were curious: A lepton was the smallest Greek coin, a quadrans was the smallest Roman coin, and Mark says a quadrans was worth two lepta. Mk 12.42 The silver weight of a lepton is worth about 4 cents in present-day USD, meaning the quadrans was worth 8 cents.

The National Day of Prayer.

In the United States, it’s the National Day of Prayer, held the first Thursday of May.

Various articles are gonna say the National Day of Prayer began in 1952. It didn’t really. Congress and various presidents have called for national days of prayer, starting with the first Continental Congress in 1775. They just haven’t been consistent. Ten presidents never bothered to call for any such days.

What did happen in 1952, was Billy Graham held a rally on the steps of the Capitol, which spurred Congress to unanimously pass Public Law 82-324, signed into law by Harry Truman. It says,

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President shall set aside and proclaim a suitable day each year, other than a Sunday, as a National Day of Prayer, on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.

Truman scheduled the first National Day of Prayer for 4 July 1952, and next year Dwight Eisenhower scheduled it for the same day, 4 July 1953. Then it started moving round the calendar. Mostly it happened Wednesdays in late October. In 1972 there were two.

PRESIDENT	DATES
Harry Truman	4 July 1952
Dwight Eisenhower	4 July 1953 26 October 1955 2 October 1957 7 October 1959	22 September 1954 12 September 1956 2 October 1958 5 October 1960
John Kennedy	4 October 1961 16 October 1963	17 October 1962
Lyndon Johnson	21 October 1964 19 October 1966 16 October 1968	20 October 1965 18 October 1967
Richard Nixon	22 October 1969 20 October 1971 18 October 1972	21 October 1970 16 February 1972 17 October 1973
Gerald Ford	18 December 1974 14 May 1976	24 July 1975
Jimmy Carter	15 December 1977 3 October 1979	7 October 1978 6 October 1980
Ronald Reagan	19 March 1981 5 May 1983 2 May 1985 7 May 1987	6 May 1982 3 May 1984 1 May 1986 5 May 1988

In 1988, Public Law 100-307 fixed it to the first Thursday in May, and that’s what it’s been ever since. (In fact, as I was looking up the dates for the previous National Days of Prayer, my search engine kept insisting it took place the first Thursday of May of that year. Nope. Bad search engine.)

Largely the National Days of Prayer were left up to the presidents until the 1980s. In 1974 the International Congress on World Evangelization was held in Lausanne, Switzerland, and on their return to the States, the American delegation decided to create Mission America to enact some of the plans they’d made in Lausanne. Part of Mission America was the National Prayer Committee, founded in 1979 and headed by Vonette Bright, one of the founders of Campus Crusade for Christ International (now Cru). They met in Washington D.C., started coordinating with the White House about National Day of Prayer events, and held their first joint event in 1983 in Constitution Hall.

What does the event look like? Well, y’know: Speeches from politicians and clergy. Prayers. Sometimes presidents let the National Day of Prayer Task Force take the lead; sometimes not. Sometimes they’re good reminders about the importance of talking with God; sometimes they’re a bunch of platitudes which say little. Some politicians have no prayer life at all, and it shows when they talk about it. (Disturbingly, some clergy members are the very same way.)

But what does this National Day of Prayer thing do? Well, it’s a reminder to pray for our homeland, which is something we oughta be doing regularly. A reminder to pray for our leaders; something we oughta also be doing.

And for Christian nationalists, it’s a not-subtle-at-all way to remind people of the political strength of Christian voters. We are legion, and we vote, so get in line. But I’m not gonna discuss the nationalists today; their godless motives aren’t about prayer anyway.

Our God is the Father of Jesus.

We Christians worship God.

Which god is that? Well, we point out he’s the One God, יהוה/YHWH, “Jehovah” or “the LORD” (in all capitals, customarily), the God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, Moses, David, and the Hebrew prophets. But both Jews and Muslims figure they worship that god too, so what makes us Christians any different from them?

Simple: Christians believe God’s a trinity—whereas they don’t. And we believe God’s uniquely the Father of Christ Jesus.

Uniquely the Father of Jesus. Because monotheists are generally agreed that God’s the Father of humanity. He created us, so he’s our Father. Duh. Says so in the bible. Moses, once when he was yelling at the Hebrews, said as much:

Deuteronomy 32.6 ESV

“Do you thus repay the LORD,

you foolish and senseless people?

Is not he your father, who created you,

who made you and established you?”

Throughout the Old Testament, God’s called the Hebrews’ father—and really everyone’s father, ’cause he made everyone. Jesus likewise calls him “your heavenly Father,” Mt 5.48 and compares our relationship with him like that of fathers with their kids. Lk 11.13 The whole point of his Prodigal Son Story Lk 15.11-32 is to describe our heavenly Father’s fatherly forgiveness.

Monotheists figure by the very same reasoning, of course God’s the Father of Jesus; he created Jesus same as he created you or me. But that’s where we Christians will say, “Wait; hold the phone; no he didn’t create Jesus. Jesus always existed. He’s God.”

Which’ll confuse them. Heck, it confuses Christians! If God’s the Father of Jesus, yet Jesus himself is God, we’ve got a paradox brewing, don’t we? Well, kinda. So we gotta explain how God’s a trinity: One God, three persons, one person’s the Father, another person’s the Son, and both of them are the one Being who is God.

When Jesus described his relationship to our heavenly Father, there’s something way different going on than we see between us and our Father. ’Cause Jesus describes himself as the Father’s only Son. You know how John 3.16 goes:

John 3.16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus is our Father’s only Son, his unique Son, his Son in a way that I’m not. ’Cause you know the Lord’s Prayer; he’s our Father. Mt 6.9 Yet Jesus is the one and only Son.

Another paradox? Not really.

Jesus appears to Mary the Magdalene, in 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯.

John 20.11-18.

When we last saw Mary the Magdalene—well, in my previous article anyway—she was weeping outside Jesus’s sepulcher because she didn’t know where his body was. Had no idea he was alive. Even though he’d told his students more than once he’d rise again, she probably assumed this was just a metaphor, or figured he’d rise on the last day; certainly not millennia before the last day. (Pretty sure nobody in bible times realized Jesus would wait millennia before his second coming!)

Anyway Peter and John had come to check it out; they found nothing but the linen strips his corpse had been wrapped in. It was reallyunlikely anybody would unwrap the corpse, so that had to make ’em wonder. John said he believed, Jn 20.8 which probably means he believed Jesus is alive; but in the other gospels none of the Eleven appears to have believed it until Jesus himself showed up. In any event they left, and left Mary behind to weep in confusion.

Then she bothered to look into the sepulcher, as Peter and John had… and saw angels.

John 20.11-13 KWL

11…and Mary stood outside the sepulcher, weeping.

So as she’s weeping, she bends down

to look into the sepulcher.

12Mary sees two angels in white,

sitting where Jesus’s corpse had been laid;

one at the head and one at the feet.

13These angels tell her, “Woman, why do you weep?”

She tells them, “Because they took my Master,

and I don’t know where they put him.”

I’ve been in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which has the slab they placed Jesus’s corpse on… hidden beneath another slab. Too many pilgrims kept kissing it, and knowing the way the pilgrims in my tour group behaved, likely they kept trying to chisel souvenirs off it. The erosion would’ve whittled it away entirely, so the churches in charge of the sepulcher decided to cover it with marble. Meh; the slab’s hidden in there somewhere. Anyway it’s a nice long slab. Plenty of room for two human-sized angels to sit at either end, and not look like they were sitting right next to one another.

In the other gospels, the angels tell the women, “He is risen; he is not here,” Mk 16.6 but in John, Mary doesn’t give them a chance to reply. She turns round because she notices someone else is there.

Jewish Christians don’t need to become gentile. And vice versa.

1 Corinthians 7.18-20.

Just after Paul and Sosthenes instruct the Corinthians to not separate from their pagan spouses—unless, obviously, they demand it—they add a few more things which new Christians shouldn’t change about ourselves now that we’re Christian. Namely if they’re circumcised, and if they’re slaves. I’ll discuss the slaves another time. Circumcision first—and if you have any hangups about penises, you probably won’t wanna read any further.

1 Corinthians 7.18-20 KWL

18Were you circumcised when God called?

Don’t get a “pullover.”

Were you one of the “foreskins” when God called?

Don’t get circumcised.

19The circumcision doesn’t matter.

The foreskin doesn’t matter.

But keeping God’s commands does matter.

20In whatever calling you’re called,

remain in this.

I should remind you: Jews had an unfortunate habit of calling gentiles “foreskins,” as we see in verse 18. It was originally meant to be a slur; it still kinda is. But, same as when nonwhites call me a cracker, I’m quite sure the “foreskins” usually laughed it off. When you’re not an oppressed minority, slurs simply aren’t the same implied threat as they are when you are a minority.

Okay. I translated the word ἐπισπάσθω/epispástho in verse 18 as “pullover,” because that’s what ἐπισπάω/epispáo literally means: ἐπι/epi, “over,” and σπάω/spáo, “pull, draw, drag.” If “pullover” makes you think of what Americans call a “sweater,” that’s exactly the idea I was going for.

Nowadays if you go to the gym, people are only gonna see you nude in the locker room. But for ancient Greeks, you were nude the whole time. They exercised nude. Couldn’t get away from the nudity. Guaranteed men were gonna see your penis. And if you were circumcised, in a room full of uncircumcised Greeks, your penis was gonna look weird and wrong to everyone else. It’s not like the United States, where more than two-thirds of us are circumcised, and foreskins stand out: You were gonna stand out.

So someone came up with a procedure to “restore” one’s foreskin: Basically you pull the remaining skin of your penis over the glans as best you can, and get it to stay there. It’ll look enough like a foreskin. And yep, they called it an ἐπίσπασις/epíspasis, a “pullover.” (Although some Greek dictionaries will define epíspasis as “pulling in,” like when you suck into a straw… which is also kind of an apt description of what was going on here.)

Obviously some Pharisees, who already had a problem with Jews going to the gym and hanging out with buck naked gentiles, thought this was awful. Ritual circumcision signifies a formal relationship with God… and you’re hiding your circumcision? Hiding your relationship with God? You may as well be pagan!

I’m actually with the Pharisees on this one. As are, you notice, the apostles: Don’t get a “pullover.” Don’t try to undo the parts of your past which might embarrass you, but don’t actually matter in the long run. Just follow Jesus.

God doesn’t want angry worshipers.

Matthew 5.23-24.

No doubt you’re familiar with angry Christians. There sure are a lot of them. Too many of them. So many of them, certain pagans are pretty sure we’re all that way; it’s the only kind of Christian they’ve ever met. They grew up around angry Christians, and as far as they can tell, it’s our default setting.

Since anger is a pretty obvious work of the flesh—whether you call it wrath, ill temper, fury, rage, or “a brutal temper” as The Message puts it Ga 5.20 —why is this? In my experience angry Christians go out of their way to justify their anger as best they can. It’s “righteous anger,” directed against sin or injustice. Of course, in practice it’s never just directed towards those abstract concepts; it’s directed towards the people who commit ’em. And since everybody sins, and most people are unjust, it’s directed towards a lot of people. Particularly political opponents.

And in practice, it’s never all that righteous. Jesus forgives sinners, and orders us to forgive sinners, and love our enemies. Do angry Christians do this? Nope! At best, they’ll shun their enemies, and be apathetic towards them, but too often they do this passive-aggressive, “I’m fighting you because your defeat is ultimately what’s best for you, and ultimately that’s love,” only it’s not.

Not only does Jesus not want his followers to live in anger, he orders us to be rid of it, and make peace with our enemies, before we worship. Yep, that’s in the Sermon on the Mount too.

Matthew 5.23-24 KWL

23“So when you offer your gift on the altar,

if you remember, right there,

your sibling has something against you,

24leave your gift there before the altar

and first go be reconciled with your sibling.

Then come back and offer your gift.”

Christians tend to skim over this teaching because we don’t do the same sort of ritual offerings as the ancient Hebrews. Usually we do good deeds, or contribute to our churches, and figure we’re doing ’em for Jesus, and that’s our offering. This “gift on the altar” thingy—lots of us don’t even know what that is.

What it is, is an act of love. The Law commanded the Hebrews to perform certain ritual sacrifices throughout the year, which represented their continual formal relationship with the LORD, and his forgiveness of their sins. But gift offerings weren’t required at all. You didn’t have to do them. They were spelled out in the bible because people wanted to do them—they loved the LORD and wanted to do more for him. So the LORD spelled out to Moses what acts he considered appropriate and appreciated, and these are the gift offerings. They’re not done for show; God’ll ignore those. They’re not done so God will owe us a favor; he’s not a petty pagan god who does that sort of thing. They’re purely done out of people’s love of God.

Now, that’s something Christians can relate to: There are plenty of things we do for God that are done purely out of love for him. We’ll sing to him more. We’ll do more good works for him. We’ll put extra money in the offering plate. We’ll create art for him—good art, not those kitschy paintings of Jesus hugging people. We’ll write music for him—good music, not pop songs that are actually meant to give us a music career. We’ll ask him what more we can do, and the Holy Spirit will give us some ideas.

But before we do anything extra for God—before we go above and beyond our usual Christian obligations—Jesus instructs us to go be reconciled with your sibling. And lest you think Jesus only means our Christian sisters and brothers, remember the Sermon on the Mount was originally preached to an audience of Jews, not Christians, and their “siblings” were their fellow Jews—religious or not. Go restore your relationship with your neighbor—and then come back and give your love-gift.

Otherwise God doesn’t want our love-gifts. Because if we refuse to love others like Jesus tells us to, we clearly don’t love him enough to obey him.

Mary the Magdalene discovers Jesus’s empty sepulcher.

John 20.1-11.

The gospels manage to give slightly different accounts of Jesus’s resurrection. Even the synoptic gospels, which are usually in sync, aren’t. Thus creating “bible difficulties” which many Christians kinda drive themselves bonkers trying to unjumble. I don’t, because as any cops can tell you: Sometimes eyewitnesses, who were there and totally saw everything, won’t all say the exact same thing. If they do, it means they got together to get their story straight—which now means their testimonies are compromised. Whereas what we have in the gospels are uncompromised testimonies. So don’t worry about ’em!

Anyway one of the facts they do get straight is Mary the Magdalene was there. In Mark and John, she was the only one there—and the first to see Jesus. In Matthew she’s with “the other Mary,” Mt 28.1 who’s probably Jesus’s aunt Mary, or “Mary of James,” Lk 24.10 meaning James’s mom; the wife of Zebedee. In Luke she’s with Joanna as well. Lk 24.10 But in Mark and John she appears to be alone. The long ending of Mark has her see Jesus right away; John has her see nothing yet.

John 20.1-2 KWL

1On the first day of the week,

in the dark part of the morning,

Mary the Magdalene comes to the sepulcher,

and sees the stone was taken away from the sepulcher.

2So Mary runs away.

She comes to Simon Peter,

and to the other student whom Jesus loves,

and tell them, “They took the Master out of the sepulcher!

We couldn’t figure out where they put him!”

The “we” in verse 2 reveals other people were with Mary at that time, and no doubt these women speculated where Jesus’s corpse might be. I translated οὐκ οἴδαμεν/uk ídamen, “we haven’t known” as “we couldn’t figure out,” because it’s better English.

Yeah, Matthew and Luke depict the women going to wherever the Eleven were staying, and telling them what the angel(s) had told them. John—written by John, who’s this “student whom Jesus loves” in verse 2—recalls it differently. He and Peter were together in some other place. Neither bothers to go inform the other nine what’s going on; they run to the sepulcher themselves… as if they can figure out what happened where the women couldn’t. Men, I tell ya.

Easter.

On 5 April 33, before the sun rose at 5:23 a.m. in Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. Executed less than 48 hours before, he became the first human on earth to be resurrected.

Jesus died the day before Passover. This was deliberate. This way his death fulfilled many of the Passover rituals. Because of this relationship to Passover, many Christians actually call this day some variation of the Hebrew פֶּסַח/Pesákh, “Passover.” In Greek and Latin (and Russian), it’s Pascha; in Danish Påske, Dutch Pasen, French Pâques, Italian Pasqua, Spanish Pascua, Swedish Påsk.

But in many Germanic-speaking countries, including English, we use the ancient pagan word for April, Eostur. In German this becomes Ostern; in English Easter. Because of the pagan origins of this word, certain Christians avoid it and just call the day “Resurrection Sunday.” Which is fine, but confuses non-Christians who don’t realize why we’re acting like a bunch of snowflakes.

Easter is our most important holiday. Christmas tends to get the world’s focus (and certainly that of merchants), but it’s only because Christmas doesn’t stretch their beliefs too far. Everybody agrees Jesus was born; we only differ on details. But Easter is about how Jesus rose from the dead, and that’s a sticking point for a whole lot of pagans. They don’t buy it.

They don’t even like it: When they die, they wanna go to heaven and stay there. Resurrection? Coming back? In a body? No no no. And we’ll even find Christians who agree with them: They’ll claim Jesus didn’t literally return from death, but exists in some super-spiritual ghostly form which returned to heaven. And that’s where we’ll go too: Heaven. No resurrection; not necessary. Yes it’s a heretic idea, but a popular one.

So to pagans, Easter’s a myth. It’s a nice story about how we Christians think Jesus came back from the dead, but they insist it comes from ancient times, back when people believed anyone could come back from the dead if they knew the right magic spell. Really it’s just a metaphor for spring, new life, rebirth; just like eggs and baby chicks and bunnies. They’ll celebrate that. With chocolate, fancy hats, brunch, and maybe an egg hunt.

But to us Christians, Easter happened. It validates Jesus; without his resurrection we’d have no clue whether he was just one of many great moral teachers, or someone to seriously bet our lives upon. It proves he’s everything he said he is. Proved it for the first Christians, who risked (and suffered) fearful deaths for him. Proves it for today’s Christians, some of whom do likewise.

Jesus dies. And takes our sin with him.

Mark 15.33-39, Matthew 27.45-54, Luke 23.44-48, John 19.28-37.

Around noon on 3 April 33, it got dark, and stayed that way till Jesus died. Obviously God was behind it, but we don’t know how. No solar eclipses in that part of the world, that time of year, so that’s out. Volcanoes have been known to darken the sky. So has weather. Regardless of how he pulled it off, God decided he wanted his Son’s death to happen in the dark.

As Jesus was hanging on the cross, various folks were taunting him, and Matthew describes the head priests, scribes, and elders even taunting him with a bit of Psalm 22:

Matthew 27.43 KWL

“He follows God?

God has to rescue him now, if he wants him

—for he said ‘I’m God’s son.’ ”

Psalm 22.8 LXX (KWL)

He hopes for the Lord, who has to release him,

who has to save him because he wants him.

Considering this psalm was so obviously getting fulfilled by Jesus’s death, taunting him with it just showed how far the Judean leaders’ unbelief went. They really didn’t think the psalm applied to Jesus any. It absolutely did.

This is why, round the ninth hour after sunrise (roughly 2:30 PM) Jesus shouted out the first line of that psalm: Elí Elí, lamá azavettáni?/“My God my God, for what reason do you abandon me?” Ps 22.1 I know; it sounds different after the gospels’ authors converted it to Greek characters.

Problem is, by this point the scribes seem to have left, ’cause nobody understood a word he said. Jesus was quoting the original Hebrew, but only scribes knew Hebrew; the Judeans spoke Syriac, and the Romans spoke Greek. Since Elo’í sounds a little like Eliyáhu, “Elijah,” that’s the conclusion they leapt to: He must be calling for Elijah. So they added that to their mocking. “Wait; let’s see whether Elijah rescues him.”

In our day many Christians have leapt to a different conclusion—a heretic one. They might know Jesus was quoting scripture, but think he quoted it ’cause the Father literally, just then, did abandon him. Seriously.

Here’s the theory. When the lights went out, this was the point when Jesus became the world’s scapegoat: The sins of the entire world were placed upon his head, Lv 16.20-22 so that when he died, our sin died with him. Which is totally possible, ’cause that’s how the scapegoat ritual was meant to work in Leviticus. Thing is, the scriptures never spell out just how Jesus substitutionarily atoned for our sins, nor when the transfer was made. The world going dark just feels like a good, dramatic time for such an event to happen.

Here’s where the theory goes wonky: After this sin-transfer was made to a scapegoat, someone was supposed to turn this goat loose in the wilderness to die. In Jesus’s case, he could hardly wander off; his wrists and ankles were nailed to a cross. He could hardly wander off… so these Christians figure the Father must’ve removed himself. Others insist the Father removed himself because he finds sin so very offensive. He couldn’t bear to watch, so he dimmed the lights (as if God can’t see in the dark) and turned his face away from his beloved, but defiled, Son.

Here’s why it’s all heresy: God is One, and the trinity is indivisible. You can’t separate the Son from the Father. They’re not two seperate beings; they’re One. The rest of us humans are separate beings from the Father, yet Paul stated nothing can separate us from his love. Ro 8.38-39 So if that’s the case, how in creation could anything, even sin, separate God the Son from God the Father? Nope; not gonna work.

The idea of the Father turning his face away is popular—especially since it’s wormed its way into Christian worship music—but there’s no biblical basis for it. Just a lot of Christians who hate sin, who kinda like the idea God hating it so much he’d leave… so don’t you sin, or God’ll quit on you. It’s a great way to scare the dickens out of sinners. But if it were that easy to drive God away, you’d think the devil’s work would’ve driven God entirely off the planet. Ironically I find a lot of Calvinists, folks fond of insisting nothing’s mightier than God, likewise teaching the idea that the Father turned his face away from his innocent Son—instead of meeting the defeated enemy of sin head-on.

I could rant on, but let’s step away from the really bad theology, and quote what the gospels did say happened when the lights went out.

Jesus confuses Herod Antipas.

Luke 23.4-12.

All the gospels tell of Jesus’s suffering, but only in Luke do we find this bit about Jesus being sent to the Roman governor of the Galilee, “King” (but really tetrarch) Herod Antipas. The other gospel authors skipped it ’cause it didn’t add anything to their accounts. Doesn’t add much to Luke either. But it’s interesting.

It begins right after Pontius Pilate, Herod’s counterpart in Judea, was presented with Jesus for crucifixion. Pilate didn’t see any reason to crucify him, ’cause as John related, he figured Jesus’s kingdom wasn’t any political threat to Rome. (It did take over Rome just the same.) So Pilate didn’t feel like crucifying Jesus… and a loose comment the Judeans made, gave him the idea to hand off his inconvenient problem to Herod.

Luke 23.4-7 KWL

4Pilate tells the head priests and the crowd,

“I find nothing of guilt in this person.”

5The crowd prevails over Pilate, saying this:

“He riles up the people, teaching throughout Judea—

having begun such behavior in the Galilee.”

6On hearing this, Pilate asks whether Jesus is Galilean.

7Realizing Jesus is under Herod Antipas’s authority,

Pilate sends him to Herod;

Herod himself being in Jerusalem on that day.

Now let’s be clear. There was no rule in the Roman Empire which said if you had the subject of another province under arrest, you had to extradite him to that province’s governor. No custom either. In fact, knowing Romans, they wouldn’t wanna extradite their prisoners, lest it be considered a sign of weakness. So there were only two possible reasons for Pilate to send Jesus to Herod:

1. Passing the buck.
2. Making nice with Herod.

Because they hated one another, Lk 23.12 and we’re not told why.

Of course we can guess why: Herod Antipas figured he oughta be Judea’s king. His dad Herod 1 had overthrown King Antigonus Mattathias in 36BC, with Roman help, and taken over Israel; he was the eldest, and supposedly next in line to the throne, after his dad had executed his brothers Aristobulus and Alexander. Herod 1’s will had instead made Herod Archelaus king, so Antipas and his brother Philip appealed to Cæsar Augustus as the will’s executor. Cæsar double-crossed them, though: He overturned the will, then divided Israel into fourths, with Antipas as the ruler of one-fourth, and Cæsar himself as the ruler of Judea. Hence Antipas and Philip’s official titles were τετράρχης/tetrárhis, “ruler of a fourth.” Pilate was ruling over two-fourths of what Antipas figured he oughta be ruling.

Or maybe it was some other silly, petty reason. Whatever; they didn’t get along. But Herod had always wanted to meet Jesus, Lk 23.8 and if Pilate knew this, it was a significant gesture on his part. More likely, I’m guessing, Pilate stumbled into this gesture by a combination of dumb luck and procrastination.

Jesus confuses Pontius Pilate.

Mark 15.1-5, Matthew 27.1-2, 11-14, Luke 23.1-4, John 18.28-38.

After the Judean senate held their perfectly legal trial and sentenced Jesus to death, the Law instructed ’em to take Jesus outside the city, hurl him off a cliff, and throw stones down on his body till he was quite dead. But because the Romans had taken over Judea 27 years before, the Romans didn’t permit ’em to execute anyone. Only Romans were permitted the death penalty. So the Romans would have to kill Jesus for them.

This meant the Judean leaders had to convince Pontius Pilate, the Roman prætor—the military governor (Greek ἡγεμών/igemón, “ruler”) of Jerusalem—that it was in Rome’s best interests to execute Jesus. The prætor wasn’t just gonna execute anybody the Judeans recommended. Especially over stuff the Romans didn’t consider capital crimes, like blasphemy against a god the Romans didn’t understand, or honestly, respect. So what’d the Judeans have on Jesus?

Simple: He declared himself Messiah. Did it right in front of everybody.

Mark 14.61-64 NLT

61BThen the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”

62Jesus said, “I AM. And you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

63Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Why do we need other witnesses? 64You have all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?”

“Guilty!” they all cried. “He deserves to die!”

Messiah (i.e. Christ) means “the anointed,” and since you only anointed kings, it straight-up means king. Jesus publicly declared himself Israel’s king. That, the Romans would consider treason: The king of Judea was Cæsar Tiberius Divi Augusti, princeps (“first citizen”) of Rome. Cæsar would have a vested interest in putting any antikings to death. So that was the charge the senate brought with them, and Jesus, to the Roman prætor.

The senators hauled Jesus to Antonia, a fort Herod 1 had built next to the temple (and named for his patron, Marcus Antonius) so soldiers could observe the Judeans in temple… just in case any riots broke out in there. The senators then presented their unrecognized true king to Pilate.

Mark 15.1 KWL

Next, in the morning, the head priests,

consulting with the elders, scribes, and the whole senate,

carry and deliver the bound Jesus

to Pontius Pilate.

Matthew 27.1-2 KWL

1As it became morning, all the head priests and people’s elders

gather in council regarding Jesus,

and how they’d put him to death.

2Binding him, they lead Jesus away

and hand him off to Pontius Pilate, the leader.

Luke 23.1-2 KWL

1Getting up, the crowd leads him to Pontius Pilate.

2They begin to accuse Jesus,

saying, “We find this man twisting our nation,

preventing taxes to be given to Cæsar,

calling himself ‘Christ’—which means king.”

In all the gospels, Pilate questioned Jesus… and came away unconvinced this man was any threat to Rome whatsoever. As Luke and John tell it, he didn’t even believe Jesus was guilty of anything. But the Judean senate wanted Jesus dead, and got plenty of the locals to say so too. In the end, Pontius pragmatically gave ’em what they wanted.

Meditation on the mystery of Christ’s suffering.

First time I heard somebody talk about meditating on divine mysteries, I didn’t understand what she was talking about. “She” was a Roman Catholic who was encouraging her fellow Catholics to do that, and I was a Protestant kid who was raised to believe Catholics were heretic. I don’t believe that anymore, but at the time, I wasn’t inclined to give my Catholic sisters and brothers the benefit of the doubt: I was pretty sure she was talking about some weird spiritual practice that’d lead people astray.

Some of the problem—other than my anti-Catholic bias—is the fact the Protestants I worshiped with, didn’t understand what meditation is. They thought all meditation was the eastern type, practiced by Hindus, Buddhists, Transcendental Meditation, and various pagan religions: You clear your mind as much as possible and think about nothing. Whereas meditation in the scriptures is all about thinking about God, and turning over in our minds the stuff he reveals to us. Usually stuff from the scriptures. And if that’s how you define meditation—and it’s supposed to be how we Christians define meditation—then my fellow Protestants did that a whole bunch; we just didn’t know to call it meditation. We let eastern pagans swipe the term right out from under us.

The other part of the problem is most Protestants didn’t know what mysteries are. To be fair, Catholics use the term way more often than Protestants do. That’s why when Protestants say “mystery,” we think it’s something we don’t know. “Contemplating mysteries” sounds to us like we’re thinking about all the things we don’t know. Contemplating divine mysteries sounds like we’re thinking about all the things about God which we don’t know—and that’s a lot, ’cause he’s an infinite God, and we got finite brains, so there’s an infinite gap between what we know and who God is.

I’ve heard more than one ignorant Protestant actually rebuke the Orthodox and Catholic for thinking about divine mysteries: “Why are they wasting their time meditating about what we don’t know about God? Shouldn’t we think about what we do know?” Yeah, this statement sounds all the more ignorant once you do know what mysteries are.

In the scriptures, mystery refers to something we previously didn’t know—but thanks to Jesus, now we know do. Biblical mysteries are mysteries solved. Mysteries revealed. Nobody who meditates on mysteries is thinking about anything they don’t know; they’re thinking—properly and appropriately!—about the stuff God revealed to us. Again, usually stuff from the scriptures.

But this wrong definition of what mystery means, still kinda permeates Protestant thinking. Look up “sacred mysteries” on the internet and you’ll find plenty of Protestants—and even some Catholics!—claiming mysteries are “profound truths which are beyond human understanding.” Yeah, they used to be beyond human understanding. Not anymore! Jesus revealed ’em. He figures we’re ready to know about them. So we can get to know them. And that is what meditating on them is all about. It’s not some weird intellectual exercise where we’re looking into the void and hoping this somehow makes us deeper people; it’s getting to know God.

The legality of Jesus’s trial.

When you read the gospel of John, but skip the other three synoptic gospels, y’might get the idea Jesus never even had a trial. In John:

• Jesus gets arrested.
• He’s taken right to the former head priest Annas’s house for an unofficial trial.
• From there, to Joseph Caiaphas’s house for interrogation.
• Then to Pontius Pilate’s prætorium for interrogation.
• Then to Golgotha for crucifixion.

No conviction, no sentence; just interviews followed by execution. Same as would be done in any country with no formal judicial system: They catch you, they interrogate you, they free or shoot you.

But both Judea and Rome did have a formal system. John doesn’t show it because the other gospels do. John was written to fill in the gaps in the other gospels’ stories—which include Jesus’s formal trials. There were two: The one before the Judean senate, and the other before the Roman prætor. The senate, presided over by head priest Caiaphas, found Jesus guilty of blasphemy and sedition. In contrast Pilate publicly stated he didn’t find Jesus guilty of anything—but he didn’t care enough to free him, and sent Jesus to his death all the same.

Is Jesus guilty of blasphemy? Only if he isn’t actually the Son of Man, and of course the senate absolutely refused to believe that’s who he is.

But Jesus actually is guilty of sedition.

I know, I know: Christians wanna insist Jesus is absolutely innocent. He never sinned y’know. But this “sedition” has nothing to do with sin against God and the Law of Moses. It has to do with human laws, Roman laws. Jesus is the legitimate Messiah, the king of Israel and Judea, anointed by God to rule that nation and the world. He’s Lord; he’s the Lord of lords. And that’s a threat to everyone who figures they’re lord—particularly the lords of Israel at that time. To Caiaphas, Herod, and Cæsar Tiberius, “Jesus is Lord” is sedition.

To leadership today it still is. Many of them don’t realize this, ’cause they don’t think of Jesus as any threat to their power. Especially after they neuter him, by convincing his supporters he’d totally vote for them and their party—and his so-called followers buy it, and follow their parties instead of Jesus. So it stands to reason our leadership isn’t worried about Jesus. Yet.

But in the year 33, Jesus was tangibly standing on the earth, in a real position to upend the status quo. He was therefore a real threat to the lords of Israel at the time—whether we’re talking emperors, prefects, tetrarchs, senators, synagogue presidents, or scribes who were used to everyone following their spins on the scriptures. To all these folks, Jesus was competition who needed to be crushed.

Following Jesus instead of these other lords: Sedition. Totally sedition. Flagrant, indefensible sedition. But it’s not against God’s Law. It’s only against human customs, so Jesus isn’t guilty of sin in God’s eyes; stil totally sinless. Relax.

Thing is, Christians don’t wanna think of Jesus as guilty of anything. We wanna defend him against everything. We don’t wanna think of his conviction and trials as valid. We don’t wanna imagine his execution was a function of a corrupt system; worse, that perhaps our own existing systems are just as corrupt, and if his first coming had taken place today, we’d’ve killed him too. Nor do we wanna recognize sentencing him to death is in any way parallel to the way we depose him as the master of our lives, and prioritize other things over him. We don’t wanna think of his trial as a miscarriage of justice; we’d rather imagine it as illegal.

This is why, every Easter, you’re gonna hear various Christians claim Jesus’s trial wasn’t legal. That the Judeans had broken all their own laws in order to arrest him and hold his trial at night, get him to testify against himself, and get him killed before anyone might find out what they were up to. It certainly feels illegal: If you ever heard of a suspect arrested at midnight, tried and convicted at 2AM, and hastily executed by noon, doesn’t the whole thing smell mighty fishy?

Holy Week: When Jesus died.

Today is Palm Sunday, the start of what we Christians call Holy Week. Various Christians also call it Great Week, Greater Week, Holy and Great Week, Passion Week, Easter Week (particularly by those people who consider Easter the end of the week). It remembers the week Jesus died, which took place 9–17 Nisan 3793 in the Hebrew calendar. In the Julian calendar that’d be 29 March to 4 April of the year 33.

DAY	DATE	JESUS’S ACTIVITY
PALM SUNDAY.	9 Nisan 3793 29 March 33	Jesus enters Jerusalem; the crowds say Hosanna. Mk 11.1-11, Mt 21.1-11, Lk 19.28-44, Jn 12.12-19
HOLY MONDAY.	10 Nisan 3793 30 March 33	Jesus cleanses the temple of merchants; curses the fig tree. Mk 11.12-18, Mt 21.12-19, Lk 19.45-46, Jn 2.13-17
HOLY TUESDAY.	11 Nisan 3793 31 March 33	Jesus teaches in temple. Lk 19.47-48, 21.37
HOLY WEDNESDAY.	12 Nisan 3793 1 April 33	Still teaching in temple.
MAUNDY THURSDAY.	13 Nisan 3793 2 April 33	The last supper; Jesus washes his students’ feet. Mk 14.12-26, Mt 26.17-30, Lk 22.7-39, Jn 13.1-14.30
GOOD FRIDAY.	14 Nisan 3793 3 April 33	Jesus is arrested, tried, condemned, executed, and entombed. Mk 14.27-15.47, Mt 26.31-27.61, Lk 22.40-23.56, Jn 15.1-19.42
HOLY SATURDAY.	15 Nisan 3793 4 April 33	Sabbath and Passover while Jesus lays dead. Pilate orders a guard for the tomb. Mt 27.62-66, Lk 23.56

Of course Jesus rose on Sunday the 5th, the day Christians now designate as Easter.

Different Christians observe Holy Week in different ways, depending on church and local custom. The churches I grew up in, usually had a somber service on Good Friday, and a just-as-somber service on Easter Sunday, ’cause they usually held some sort of passion play where most of the service was focused on Jesus getting killed. Lots of weeping. Lots of repentance and conversions. Happy ending, ’cause Jesus is alive, but the focus was more on him dying for our sins. Lots of churches tend to focus on the sad bits, ’cause we humans get depressing like that.

But many churches—properly—spend Holy Week on the sad bits, and Easter Sunday and the weeks thereafter rejoicing. Because Jesus is alive.

What is it with Christians and fascism?

CHRISTOFASCISM 'krɪs.toʊ'fæ.ʃɪz.əm noun. A politically conservative, authoritarian, nationalistic ideology, which claims to be based on Christian principles.

[Christofascist adjective.]

Back in high school history class, we were introduced to the word “fascism,” but as I recall my history teachers had the darnedest time trying to explain what it was. I suspect it’s because they didn’t wanna offend any conservative parents who might lean a little fascist.

Properly, fascism is the movement led by Benito Mussolini in Italy in the 1930s. It’s not based on any particular political ideas, because Mussolini wasn’t an ideas guy; he was a populist. He just wanted to get elected, claimed he’d make Italy great again, and planned to do it by bypassing democracy and the usual checks and balances used to keep dictators from seizing power. The Italians called him il Duce, “the Duke,” because he tried to run the country much like a medieval duke—or one of the early Roman emperors, whom he used as his examples.

The few traits fascists and fascist governments have in common is they’re

• AUTHORITARIAN. The leader tends to act like an absolute monarch, tries to suppress his political foes and hold on to power, and tries to control everything in the country—regardless of existing laws and customs, and even civil rights. (Habeas corpus especially.)
• CONSERVATIVE. Fascist regimes are always anti-Communist, and anti anything they claim to be Communist, like unions and labor laws and government oversight. Always claim to uphold traditional values and standards… and always claim God’s on their side. Often go out of their way to look devout—mainly to help cover up how much they don’t act it.
• NATIONALISTIC. By “nation” they mean the largest ethnic group in the land, so yeah, we’re talking racism. Every other ethnic group is cast as “the problem,” and need to be enslaved, mitigated, deported, or eliminated.

The reason fascism was so widespread in the 1930s, and why it’s returned in such a big way in the 2020s, is because it taps into human nature so very well. People are inherently selfish. We want God to grant us all our selfish desires, Jm 4.3 and if God won’t grant it, maybe this fascist politician will. We want government to grant it, and if a democratic government can’t achieve it through negotiation and compromise, a fascist government can do it through steamrolling all our opponents.

And because fascists recognize that the biggest potential obstacle to their thirst for power is the one to whom we’re meant to grant all power—Christ Jesus—they go out of their way to make Christians believe, “No, really, Jesus is on my side. I’m doing this stuff for him. He approves. Lookit all the sinners I’m going to persecute on his behalf!” Historically they’ve been very successful at this, because obviously Christians don’t know our own Lord well enough to recognize this pursuit and elevation of temporal power, to do our will and claim it’s really Jesus’s, is obviously the spirit of antichrist.

Atonement: God wants to save everybody!

Humanity’s sins have significantly damaged our relationship with God. But not irreperably. God can fix anything. And he did.

As most of us know from the times other people have sinned against us, some of the time we can simply, easily forgive those sins… and sometimes it’s not that simple. Some sins are mighty destructive. When we wrongly destroy something, it oughta be replaced, but that’s not always easy to do. If you destroy something with a lot of sentimental value attached to it, a simple replacement isn’t gonna cut it. If you destroy family photos, sometimes they’re not replaceable. Same deal when you wrongly kill someone: It’s kinda impossible for us to replace them. God could do it, but we certainly can’t.

So when people ask me, “Well can’t God just forgive all our sins, and that’s that?”—it’s not gonna be that easy. Our sins do damage. We don’t always see or care about all the spiritual damage, but it’s there. God can see it, even though we can’t. So God can’t just forgive us; he’s gotta do damage control. He’s gotta fix things.

That’s what atonement is: God’s act of fixing sin-damage.

That’s what it means whenever we try to atone for evil we’ve done: When we try to fix sin-damage… with various degrees of success. We don’t always succeed. Some of our acts of atonement are actually kinda pathetic. Like when a corporation offers people money to make up for harm they’ve done—and it’s always too little money, unless the courts get invovled and make ’em pay something gargantuan.

The Hebrew words for atonement are כֹּפֶר/kofér, כִּפֻּר/kippúr (which you know from the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, “day of atonement”), and its related verb כָּפַר/kafár. It literally means “plaster.” You know, like when somebody knocked a hole in a wall. You put some plaster or putty or spackle or cement on it, paint over it… and if you applied the filler properly, the wall’s as good as new. Sometimes better than new, ’cause your plaster is stronger than the drywall you’ve patched. And that’s the word the LORD uses in Exodus to describe what the ancient Hebrews’ ritual sacrifices represented to him: Their sins poked holes in their relationship with God, and needed plastering. It’s a really simple metaphor: Sin breaks stuff, and atonement glues it back together.

The word English-speakers used to use to describe kofér, and its Greek translation ἱλασμός/ilasmós, was “propitiation.” It’s still found in the King James Version Ro 3.25, 1Jn 2.2, 4.10 and comes from the Latin verb propitio, “to appease; to regain the good favor of.” It sorta misses the point of kofér—and of grace. Thanks to God’s grace, we already have his good favor; he already considers us right with him. But sin-damage still needs to be dealt with. We still need to make things right in the universe. God’s just fine—a fact which many Christians still don’t wholly grasp (and occasionally send me rebuking emails to complain I’m making God sound too radically gracious, as if that’s possible) ’cause we still struggle to fathom how deep and wide God’s love and grace is.

Anyway, there used to be a Middle English word, “onement,” which means unity. John Wycliffe used it in Ezekiel 37.17. English-speaking preachers started to use the prefix “at-” with it, meaning in, to describe our relationship with God: We’re in unity with him. Supposedly atoning acts bring us back to this state of unity… but remember, God does grace, so we don’t need to do these atoning acts.

Because Christ Jesus already did the atoning act: He sacrificed himself for the sins of the world. Cl 1.22, 1Pe 1.19 He took care of it. We need do nothing more than accept that he took care of it. We can’t add to it; we’re not good enough to sacrifice ourselves for anything more than our own sins.

Since Jesus is God, it makes God himself our plaster. We have him patching the cracks that sin made in our lives—in much the same way the Holy Spirit was sealed to us when we first turned to God. But don’t play with that metaphor too much, lest you get the idea it’s okay to poke holes in your life so God can putty them with more of himself. We’re not meant to keep on sinning so we can get more grace. Ro 6.1-2 Instead look at your life as a wall full of holes, patched over by God. We might imagine it as flawed; we can’t get past the idea of all the holes beneath the paint. But God nonetheless considers it a perfectly good wall. It serves its purpose: It keeps out the wind and rain. It keeps prying eyes from looking through it. It keeps listening ears from hearing better through it. It provides shelter. We can hang pictures on it. And so on, till the metaphor breaks down and we just get silly. But you get the idea.

God wants us, and our relationship with him, repaired, back to the way he originally meant things. He doesn’t want to knock us down and start again from scratch.

Plucking Jesus’s beard. Or not.

Isaiah 50.6.

Because Jesus was foretold in the Old Testament, a lot of Christians throughout history have dug around the OT looking for as many scriptures as possible which might be foretellings of Jesus. They claim to have found hundreds.

And okay, fair, there are hundreds. But there are also a whole lot of passages which actually aren’t about Jesus. They’re about other stuff. Other people, other events, other teachings. Even other messiahs. (“Messiah” is a title of the king of Israel, and Jesus is the current king of Israel, but of course he had predecessors.)

These passages resemble Jesus-stuff, so Christians claim ’em for Jesus. But in fact we’re taking those Old Testament passages out of context. It’s so important to Christians that we amass as big a number of OT “Messianic prophecies” as possible, that often we don’t care we’re misinterpreting and misquoting bible.

Today’s Isaiah passage is one of them. I originally wrote about it for advent, but it has to do with Jesus’s suffering and death, so it’s important to talk about it during the Lenten season too. It’s about how it was foretold that Jesus would get his beard plucked. Supposedly that happened after he was arrested; while he was tortured before he was crucified. Some Jesus movies throw in a scene where inbetween smacking him around and spitting on him, someone grabs a big tuft of Jesus’s beard and rips it out. Yee-ouch!

Years ago I tried to find that beard-ripping moment in the gospels, and found it’s not there at all. Doesn’t come from the gospels. It’s supposedly from Isaiah 50.6.

Isaiah 50.6 KJV

I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Some Christian musta read Isaiah, found this verse about someone getting their face spat upon, thought, “Well Jesus had his face spat upon,” and concluded this was a prophecy about Jesus. And Isaiah apparently also foretold Jesus had his cheeks plucked. So there we are! They pulled out his beard.

Is this passage a foretelling of Jesus? Nah; it’s about Isaiah himself. But tradition says it’s about Jesus… and as we all know, traditions aren’t infallible. This one sure ain’t.

“Fasting” from one thing at a time.

Custom during the Lenten season, because it’s a time to reflect on Jesus’s death and self-sacrifice, is the Lenten fast, between Ash Wednesday and Easter. (And take Sundays off. Not everybody remembers Sundays are feast days, and we’re not meant to fast on feast days.) But it’s not a total 40-day fast; many who practice Lent simply go without meat and alcohol… plus one other thing.

And for many, if not most, they only go without the one other thing. Hence all the discussions before Ash Wednesday of “What’re you giving up for Lent?” Then, during the Lenten season, “How’re you doing?”—a question which typically dies off after the people who usually ask this question, fail in their own fasts.

Lent isn’t the only time Christians “fast” from only one thing. I’ve done it. My church would call for a weeklong fast, or a 14-day fast, or a 21-day fast, and I really didn’t feel like starving myself just because Pastor had a spiritual bug up his heiney. (And as you can tell, my own attitude at the time sucked.) So like many a Christian, I did the laziest bare minimum: I gave up only one thing. Something inconvenient, yet kinda easy. Like coffee. Now, if you know how much coffee I consume, you might think this was an act of heroic self-control on my part… but nah, it’s really not. I’m not addicted to caffeine. (I drink it for the flavor, and switch to decaf after lunch.) Giving up caffeine was just as easy.

As was sugar—which was something I actually stuck with after the fast was over. But giving up bagels was unexpectedly hard; guess I’m more addicted to them than I realized. Meh; enough about me.

I’ve been asked whether giving up only one thing as a “fast” actually counts as a fast. It can. Two thoughts though.

First of all I gotta ask them whether they’re honestly fasting for the right reasons. You do realize God never obligates us to fast. Yes, there are those numbnuts who insist he absolutely did call for a fast in Isaiah 58.6, but obviously they never read the context: The LORD’s using fasting as a metaphor for justice and freedom. Has nothing to do with going hungry for God, nor giving up a particular item.

So we’re not disobeying God when we skip a fast, break a fast, “cheat” on a fast, or diet instead of fasting. True, our churches might want us to fast, and legalistic churches will certainly require it. But unless you swore to God you’d fast along with ’em, you’re not sinning if you don’t fast. (And of course lying about it, or pretending you’re fasting when you’re not, is always wrong.)

Likewise I don’t want people to think the purpose of fasting is to earn karmic points with God. God never “owes us one” for fasting, nor anything we do. Worship and obedience is our duty, Lk 17.10 not a favor we do for him that’s gonna earn us jewels in our heavenly crowns. What, did you not get enough participation trophies in youth soccer?

Fasting is simply a practice which Christians have found helps us focus better on God in prayer, and helps us develop self-control. That’s the only reason we do it. If anyone tells you there are other spiritual abilities, benefits, or rewards for fasting, I advise you to be wary. Too many of ’em are trying to get you to follow them more so than God.

Second I don’t assume Christians are lazy when they want a bare-minimum “fast.” Yeah, sometimes it’s totally that; been there done that myself. But more often it’s because fasting is hardcore. And admittedly, we’re weak. Going without food for a whole day? We’ll crack by 10AM! We’ll walk into the break room, someone will have brought doughnuts, and we’ll hold out maybe an hour. But knowing ourselves, less. A warm Krispy Kreme doughnut is a powerful thing.

I don’t say this to condemn weak Christians. Every last one of us was a weak Christian at one point. (Me, many points.) So if you’re still weak, I’m here to help, not judge or mock. You gotta build self-control. Fasting is the fastest way to do it, but it’s wise to start small and work your way up. Y’don’t just tackle the very hardest practices, and presume you’ll be a natural ’cause now you have Holy Spirit power. Fast small before you fast big.

So, the very least we can fast… is that one single thing.

And this is a very common Christian practice. Some Christians do it every Lent. I’m not saying you need to observe Lent. Start even smaller. Abstain for a week. See how you do. If you fail—and you may—try again.

Pontius Pilate’s attitude towards Jesus.

Matthew 27.19, 24-26, John 19.7-12.

Whenever preachers talk about Pontius Pilate, I find way too many of them describe him as an uncaring government functionary or bureaucrat, who clearly didn’t care enough about Jesus to stop him from dying.

I’m not entirely sure where they got this idea. I suspect it comes from bad Jesus movies. Most of them, trying to foreshadow Jesus’s death or create dramatic tension, try to depict the people who killed Jesus as way more organized than they actually were. It works for today’s audiences, who are mainly thinking of the way their culture works, not Jesus’s. In a democracy, if rulers want to murder someone, government answers to the people, and people have rights; so it takes a lot of conspiring between corrupt officials to try to make it look like a reasonable action. But the Roman Empire was no democracy. It was a fascist dictatorship, which answered to no one. Roman citizens’ rights were recognized, but no one else’s was, and you could kill ’em simply because they were inconvenient. Jesus easily fell into that category.

The bad Jesus movies also typically depict Pilate as an unbelieving skeptic, if not nontheist. The writers must figure if Pilate were religious in any form, he’d’ve fought harder for Jesus. The most they show, is Pilate is curious about Jesus; his accusers claim he’s a revolutionary, but Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” Jn 18.36 —it’s not a political kingdom; it’s not a political threat to the Roman Empire at all. So Pilate deduces Jesus isn’t a problem, and wants to let him go because he’s not, but the Judean rulers are so insistent, and Pilate doesn’t wanna rile them up, so he throws up his hands and crucifies Jesus as the path of least resistance.

All this junk worms its way into Christian sermons, because people remember movies way better than the text of the scriptures. But I’m going with the gospels, and they depict Pilate as really hesitant to have anything to do with Jesus. He’s particularly wary in John’s gospel. Here’s part of the reason why:

John 19.7-12 KWL

7The Judean leaders replied to Pilate,

“We have a Law, and according to Law,

Jesus is obligated to die,

for he makes himself out to be the son of God.”

8So when Pilate hears this word, he’s even more afraid.

9Pilate again enters the prætorium

and tells Jesus, “Where did you come from?”

Jesus gives him no answer.

10So Pilate tells Jesus, “You don’t speak to me?

Didn’t you know I have power to release you

and power to crucify you?”

11Jesus answers Pilate, “You don’t have power over me.

You have nothing—

unless it was given you from above.

This is why the one who betrayed me to you

has a greater sin.”

12ABecause of this, Pilate is seeking to release Jesus.

And in Matthew we see another part.

Matthew 27.19 KWL

As Pilate was sitting in the rostrum,

his woman sends him a message,

saying, “Have nothing between you and that righteous man.

For I am suffering greatly because of a dream about him.”

Our anger might create big, big trouble.

Matthew 5.21-22.

Here’s the first of the “Ye have heard… but I say unto you” parts of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gets into them right after he says he has no intention whatsoever of undoing or undermining the Law of Moses, so if you ever get the idea he’s trying to do that with his teachings, no he’s not; he just said he’s not. He’s trying to clarify the intent of the Law: Here’s how we were always meant to follow it. And it’s not the way the scribes and Pharisees claim. Mt 7.28-29

Jesus begins with anger. ’Cause people get angry. Even Jesus got angry. Mk 10.14 And unless we know how to practice self-control, we’re gonna act on that anger, and do something regrettable. Oh, we might justify it by claiming we had “righteous” anger, but don’t fool yourself; Jesus’s brother James stated “human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” Jm 1.20 NIV Anger’s a work of the flesh, and we always need to be on our guard against it. Hence Jesus’s teachings.

Matthew 5.21-22 KWL

21“You* hear the oldtimers say,

‘You will not murder, Ex 20.13, Dt 5.17

and whoever might murder will be found guilty’?

22I tell you:*

Everyone who’s been made angry by their sibling,

{for no good reason,} will be found guilty.

Anyone who might tell their sibling, ‘You waste of space,’

will be guilty under the Judean senate.

Anyone who might say, ‘You moron,’

will be guilty in fiery Gehenna.”

Other bibles tend to translate aorist-tense Greek verbs as past tense. I don’t; aorist verbs are neither past, present, nor future. They happen, but we only know when they happen by the context of other verbs or actions—and since Jesus is largely speaking in present tense, that’s how we’re meant to translate ’em. So when Jesus says “You hear the oldtimers say,” he’s not talking about something his listeners heard a long, long time ago, or read in the bible; he’s talking about what oldtimers say all the time, whether in synagogue, at home, or on the streets.

“You will not murder.” It’s in the Ten Commandments. It needs repeating, because murder still happens a lot. And in ancient times, it happened far, far more often than it does now—because people could get away with it. No cops, no detectives who worked for the state, and no science so you could do actual detection. Nobody had the attitude murder is a crime against God and the state (which it is); in fact the state, in the form of Roman soldiers and governors, murdered people all the time. Even righteous King David murdered a guy to steal his wife, and got away with it. People figured murder was only a crime against the victim’s family—and if nobody would miss the victim, nor mind that they’re dead, what’s the big deal?

Yep, throughout biblical times, including in Jesus’s day, murders and lynchings and fights that turned deadly happened all the time. And what’s the origin of most of these deaths? Anger.

Too often, anger for no good reason—which is why somebody inserted the word εἰκῆ/eikí, “in vain,” into a third-century copy of the text, and it wound up in the Sinaiticus, the Peshitta, the Textus Receptus, and the KJV. But Jesus probably didn’t say it—and didn’t need to. After all, people would try to use it as a loophole: “I didn’t kill him in vain anger, but righteous anger, so it’s a righteous kill.”

Nope; murder is murder. Don’t.

The serenity prayer.

One of the more popular rote prayers is “the serenity prayer.” It’s prayed by Christians and pagans alike, ’cause it’s the official prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous. Other 12-step programs use it as well.

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time,

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it,

trusting that you will make all things right

if I surrender to your will,

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

and supremely happy with you forever in the next.

Amen.

Credit for the prayer is usually given to American theologian and philosopher Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), although the original version looks a bit different. Its first publication was in the March 1933 edition of The Woman’s Press, in Winnifred Crane Wygal’s article “On the Edge of Tomorrow.”

Oh, God, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and insight to know the one from the other.

Wygal was a grad student at Union Theological Seminary, Neibuhr’s school. In her 1940 book We Plan Our Own Worship Services, she indicated she got the prayer from him. Neibuhr’s daughter Elisabeth Sifton claimed her father wrote it for a Sunday service in 1943. As you notice, she was a bit off on the date—which caused some confusion, and controversy, when Yale Law School librarian Fred R. Shapiro stated in a 2008 New York Times article he’d found the prayer published eight times before 1943. At the time, he questioned whether Niebuhr even authored it. He doesn’t now.

Alcoholics Anonymous founder William Griffith Wilson (a.k.a. “Bill W.”) came across the prayer in early 1942. A member of his New York group found it in a New York Herald Tribune obituary and shared it. The group immediately adopted it, and included a copy of it in every outgoing letter.

Niebuhr admitted the idea behind the prayer had been “spooking around” for centuries. You can even find it expressed in Cicero’s Six Mistakes of Man: “The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.”