Getting the message right for Easter

 So many churches are going to preach the wrong message today at their Easter services.

They're going to talk about the gift of forgiveness, as though we're all crushed beneath the weight of overwhelming guilt. If that's you, that message is true and it's worth listening to. More power to you as you seek it.

But most of us are looking for something different.

We want people to stop shooting children.

We want people to stop telling lies about drag queens, about the transgender and about our gay friends. They're not a danger, and we know it.

We want everyone to have a seat at the table with equal say in the conversation. We want their stories heard and not hushed up because it makes the powerful uncomfortable to hear them.

We want debt wiped away, and we want inequity balanced out.

We want justice, not law and order.

We don't want to die.

This is the promise Jesus left his church with. He announced it  when he read from the scroll of Isaiah that shabbat service in Nazareth, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” 

It's a promise Jesus proclaimed with every healing he performed. He taught it in every line of the Beatitudes, and pushed it every time he reminded the wealthy to give to the poor. He wove it like a golden thread through his parables.

Jesus never said "wait until you go to heaven, and it'll work out then." His message was always "The kingdom of God has arrived, it is in your midst." It was this life Jesus focused on, not the next.

Empire exists by order. Jesus promises to pull down empire, to disrupt order and to promote justice. Jesus is a threat to those in power because they like to claim that God is on their side, and the way of Christ reminds them that he is not.

So they killed him.

And as a sign, God raised him from the dead.