A happy Easter?

[The Toad]

Easter is almost upon us.  But if Jesus died not to pay the price of our sins but because he picked a fight with organized religion; and if he didn't rise from the dead and 'destroy the last of all enemies' death itself; is there any reason to bother with Easter?  If we can continue to tell the Easter story only by changing the meaning of the words it uses, by making those words mean something completely different - for example by making 'eternal life' refer to 'a quality of life' rather than its obvious meaning - wouldn't it be more honest to abandon it and celebrate something else instead?  Is there any reason why we should not dump Easter and have a Spring Day festival?  The chocolate bunnies and eggs would transfer to a Spring Day without any difficulty, and we could leave behind all the theological doublespeak.  Is there anything that you will be celebrating this Easter which couldn't just as easily be celebrated on Spring Day?

[Bonzo]

I think the Easter story is a wonderful metaphor and worth revisiting every year.

I don't see it as being about a bodily resurrection, but more about the fact that Love itself cannot be killed. 

The post resurrection experiences are, to my mind, elaborations on epiphanies - realisations that the work of Jesus - following the way of Love, could be done by anyone.  The disciples realised that it was too important, that they had been changed too much to go back to their old jobs.

God incarnate, ISTM, is about God in everyone.

I don't now see the eternal life thing as an important aspect of this story.   It's not about the hereafter for me, but about the ongoing work of Love in the world.

[JJ]

and we could leave behind all the theological doublespeak. 

Heard a snatch of the Good Friday meditation on Radio 4 this afternoon as I was driving along - just so.  Incomprehensible doublespeak.

[Demas]

Well, Easter can't be a celebration of spring where I am 

[OR]

Easter only works if it was God who was crucified as part of a Divine plan with clarity and certainty of meaning.

There is lots of evidence that Jesus went to his death deliberately, but quite reluctantly, as would a man driven by what he thought was Divine Guidance. A Divine being, working to a script laid down before time began, would perhaps not have asked for the cup to be taken from him.

Jesus as the Son of God raises far too many doubts about the competence and foresight of God the Father, and indeed the entire example of the defeat of love by selfish power. I would have thought, taking the Crucifixion along with the Sermon on the Mount, the message could just as validly be read that the meek the poor and the righteous were going to get what was coming to them.  Unless, of course, they stood together to prevent it.

This message, which was hinted at by Jesus as a man,was well understood by early Christians who used Love through Strength as a policy against the Romans until they too were taken over by the non meek and non peacemakers.

I wonder about Bonzo's statement that Love cannot be killed. Whose 'love'? Jesus's ability to love, and to clarify that idea of 'love' was certainly extinguished on the Cross. Love in the World can never be extinguished because it is a chemical function of our genes. As it has been since dinosaurs first built nests. Love is not a supernatural external trait, it is a personal one. Bonzo does not have his wonderful excess of Love because of a cruci fiction, but because being human and being brought up in Love has made him so.

Easter, like the chocolate Easter egg, is consumed without much thought by those who like sweet things wrapped in brightly coloured glitter.

[Demas]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhabqA4W4AA[/youtube]

[Bonzo]

I wonder about Bonzo's statement that Love cannot be killed. Whose 'love'? Jesus's ability to love, and to clarify that idea of 'love' was certainly extinguished on the Cross. Love in the World can never be extinguished because it is a chemical function of our genes. As it has been since dinosaurs first built nests. Love is not a supernatural external trait, it is a personal one. Bonzo does not have his wonderful excess of Love because of a cruci fiction, but because being human and being brought up in Love has made him so.

In one sense Jesus' Love didn't die with him on the cross.  Love is infectious.  If you pass it on it grows and changes people, and by the time Jesus died his disciples were changed enough by it that it couldn't be stopped.  Of course it is something innate, a function of our brains enabled by our genes.  I don't personally see it as having supernatural qualities, but it can be thought of as having something very similar - Love (metaphorically) 'moves mountains', 'throws down tyrants' and 'confounds the powers of this world'.  Love seems to spring up where everyone thought it was buried.   

Yes, being brought up in Love has helped me to Love - in fact every act of Love, whether it's by parents, teachers, friends or strangers, helps others to Love.

Yesterday, I went to the wedding of a girl I have known since she was a baby, born into a difficult family situation, plagued with mental illness and poverty.  Many people would have given her little hope of becoming much.  But now, a qualified teacher, marrying a chemical engineer, organising a wonderful day.  Two people, very much in Love, showing a commensurate grasp of all that is needed to have a happy an successful life.  How did such a thing come about?   Well, to my mind, it came about because of nurture in Love by a mum and dad who, despite their problems, gave their daughter the wings to fly.

[Bozkat]

when the kings came to jesus's birth they said "his death shall be as important as his death"(or something) so why do we celebrate christmas much more with carols and santa etc than easter where we have choclate but no carols or decorations

[seeka]

I wonder about Bonzo's statement that Love cannot be killed. Whose 'love'? Jesus's ability to love, and to clarify that idea of 'love' was certainly extinguished on the Cross. Love in the World can never be extinguished because it is a chemical function of our genes. As it has been since dinosaurs first built nests. Love is not a supernatural external trait, it is a personal one. Bonzo does not have his wonderful excess of Love because of a cruci fiction, but because being human and being brought up in Love has made him so.

In one sense Jesus' Love didn't die with him on the cross.  Love is infectious.  If you pass it on it grows and changes people, and by the time Jesus died his disciples were changed enough by it that it couldn't be stopped.  Of course it is something innate, a function of our brains enabled by our genes.  I don't personally see it as having supernatural qualities, but it can be thought of as having something very similar - Love (metaphorically) 'moves mountains', 'throws down tyrants' and 'confounds the powers of this world'.  Love seems to spring up where everyone thought it was buried.   

Yes, being brought up in Love has helped me to Love - in fact every act of Love, whether it's by parents, teachers, friends or strangers, helps others to Love.

Yesterday, I went to the wedding of a girl I have known since she was a baby, born into a difficult family situation, plagued with mental illness and poverty.  Many people would have given her little hope of becoming much.  But now, a qualified teacher, marrying a chemical engineer, organising a wonderful day.  Two people, very much in Love, showing a commensurate grasp of all that is needed to have a happy an successful life.  How did such a thing come about?   Well, to my mind, it came about because of nurture in Love by a mum and dad who, despite their problems, gave their daughter the wings to fly.

The various human(istic) accounts are wonderful to my mind.  I don t partic wanna separate the human and the divine either.  Often its seems to be a matter of languages, dialects, or registers (science or poetry etc)

And, I have been touched from time to time by humans, by maybe archetypes, by the past reaching forward, or maybe the future reaching back (?).  I have felt my heart strangely moved (+ other organs!

I feel I have felt Jesus or Light with me or within me and within you---

youse on here have shown me love, shown me God from time to time in diverse ways.

I have from the age of 3 onwards as memory serves encountered some loving, good and amazing human beings in assemblies / gospel halls,SA citadels/ halls,  chapels, churches, meeting houses and among all kinds of people who quietly and without balleehoo were trying to follow JC

i myself have sat with dying people and their loved ones,depressed people,  mentally ill people, people imprisoned as well as being the one with whom others have sat or sought to give help...


it all adds up to something innit

these days i m not that keen to define, label or laid down stuff

its not been a waste time I'm feckin sure of That




in hospitals, homes, courts, prisons,

[seeka]

when the kings came to jesus's birth they said "his death shall be as important as his death"(or something) so why do we celebrate christmas much more with carols and santa etc than easter where we have choclate but no carols or decorations

i m sure ur dad can answer that easy-peasy !

[OR]

In one sense Jesus' Love didn't die with him on the cross.  Love is infectious.

Bonzo, was there no love before Jesus? or other people all over the World who practiced love?  Jesus has not got a monopoly. People pass on love without being divinely inspired - as do many animals.

I saw, and felt, lots of love at your church this morning, and I wonder - was it inspired by Jesus? or was it just a collection of loving people looking for a source of the love they feel? A feeling that does not lend itself to physics, more to metaphysics.

Happy Easter to one and all.

[Bonzo]

Oh! I'm not saying that Jesus was unique in Loving.  The Gospel story is a picture of something that happens again and again, every time Love gives itself for others.  Historically it is perhaps the first time that the picture was painted - or painted so superbly.   And I think the picture - wherever it is painted, is inspiring.  What you see in our Church is, ISTM, both a collection of Loving people and an inspired set of people (of which you have become a part) - people of the story, who themselves paint pictures for others.

[The Toad]

Quote from Bozkat:

when the kings came to jesus's birth they said "his death shall be as important as his death"(or something) so why do we celebrate christmas much more with carols and santa etc than easter where we have choclate but no carols or decorations

It's a good question.  Perhaps Christmas is easier to picture, and appeals more to the imagination: we all have a mental image of what Jesus's birth looked like - the stable, the ox and the ass, the shepherds, the baby lying in a manger, and the chorus of angels overhead - whereas Easter is harder to imagine.  I can't think what we would put in the Easter equivalent of a crib, if we wanted to make one - an empty coffin?  Perhaps the fact that people tend to go all dewy-eyed about babies has something to do with it, too.
We used to have a collection of small plastic angels plating lutes, harps and the like.  They stood on top of our crib at Christmas, and were always referred to as 'The Jerusalem Jazz Band'.  I wonder if they're still in with the Christmas things....

[seeka]

Refreshing theological approach for ester or any time ?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Johnson_(theologian)