Yes!

Poor, neglected blog! I've been remiss in the past month. My old computer went on the kibbutz, and for some reason that sapped my enthusiasm for writing! Why? I feel bad about that. My personal technology goes kaput and suddenly my favorite way of ministering seems boring? Moreover, I get a shiny new computer and I'm suddenly back on the wagon?

Hm. I could feel ashamed, or I could just accept that I'm a fickle human and laugh. I choose the latter.

So we approach Easter, my favorite time of year in the church. Christmas does not hold the same reverence and mystery for me as Lent and Easter. I love Christmas, don't get me wrong. I love going home to my rural family and hearing the old familiar carols play and all that, and the birth of Jesus is a wondrous and beautiful event to commemorate. But Lent is very real to me. It makes me relive the journey of Jesus to the cross. It isn't pretty, there are no lights or trees or carols. It is real, it is bloody, it is tragic, it is heart-rending. Jesus the Christ, tortured, spat on, lashed and beaten. This is happened. No matter what way we smooth over the pain and the thorns by making the cross ivory or gold or polished wood, the fact of the matter is that whatever you believe about Jesus after his death, He was nailed to a splintered wooden cross and hung there to die slowly of thirst, blood loss, starvation, rot.

But wait.

This person was so powerful, such a personification of God, of Love, that after his death, he either actually rose again to be with God or was so beloved by his followers that he lived on for thousands and thousands of years through more faithful disciples. Either way, it's miraculous. It is HOPE. It's an accurate picture of our human life: Struggle, toil, persecution, failure, death...and then HOPE. Through the Easter story, we were never promised perfect lives and unending happiness from God; we are promised unconditional mercy and love.

I waste a lot of time fretting and wringing my hands over what it means to be "good." There's some value in that, to be sure. It is good to do good works, to be a good parent, wife, friend. But if I am not those things, I am still loved by God. I don't do those things in order to get into heaven; I am already promised heaven, because I am human and will never "deserve" to get there. I love in as close approximation as I can to the way Jesus loves. I love and do good BECAUSE I am loved unconditionally. God says "Yes" to my life, and I try to hear it.