Of Easter and infomercials...

When I was a little girl, a lot of what was taught to me about Jesus sounded like an infomercial.  Ask Jesus into your heart and all your problems will be solved. It was usually illustrated by a story of someone who had lived a life of sex, drugs, rock and roll who gave all that up and now magically was happy.

And so I bought into the product.
And was terribly disappointed when I learned that it didn't work.
And worse I learned that many were just "pretending" that it did while they hid the darker sides of themselves.

We live in an "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" world.  One where we wrong each other terribly and there is retribution. (Which as Calvin Miller writes is a "rapid, satisfying way to a sightless, toothless world.") The thing about sin is that it is selfish. My pleasure. My justice. My gain. Which on the surface would seem that it would get us somewhere. Instead, it is a strange sort of bondage, one that never seems to completely fill us and one that separates us completely from our Creator.

The power of Jesus is in the reversal of all of that. Instead of seeking for himself, he was willing to do the opposite. To give everything...his power, his blood, his obedience, his life. And this act of complete selflessness changed everything. The ripping of the fabric that separated God and man.

And therein lies the secret to Easter. Human relationships can only deliver so much, and there is bitter disappointment in living a life focused solely on ourselves. Easter means that we no longer have to.  That we can be filled with God's spirit and become--through a daily opening to that work--who we were always meant to be.  Filled with the love that made us.