Quote of the day:
"And just so daily somewhere Messiah
is shunned like a beggar at the door because
someone has something he wants to finish
or just something better to do, something
he prefers not to put off forever
—some little pleasure so deeply wished
that Heaven's coming has to seem bad luck
or worse, God's intruding selfishness!”
--From The Dream by Irving Feldman
Whatever might be said about the decline of Christianity in America, millions of people are in church this Easter morning singing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.”
With conservative Christians loudly speaking for the entire faith over the last few years, many people assume that all Christians today are celebrating a set of historical, scientifically impossible occurrences 2000 years ago. To reasonable, thoughtful, non-religious people, this understandably makes no sense.
The thing is, many of the people in church this morning are just as reasonable and thoughtful--if not more so.
They are not celebrating the absolute certainly of very specific, implausible facts from two millenia ago. Some or all of these things may have happened, or may not have. There is no way of knowing for sure.
What Easter is about is the inexorable rising of new life out of the worst humanity has to offer--death, despair, denial, betrayal, cruelty and pain.
And this happens purely by grace--not because we have earned it or deserve it.
It is the mystery of this that propels the joy of Easter morning.
When did Christianity come to be seen as a celebration of the absolute facts of history? It’s called the Christian faith, not the Christian certainty.
--From The Dream by Irving Feldman
Whatever might be said about the decline of Christianity in America, millions of people are in church this Easter morning singing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.”
With conservative Christians loudly speaking for the entire faith over the last few years, many people assume that all Christians today are celebrating a set of historical, scientifically impossible occurrences 2000 years ago. To reasonable, thoughtful, non-religious people, this understandably makes no sense.
The thing is, many of the people in church this morning are just as reasonable and thoughtful--if not more so.
They are not celebrating the absolute certainly of very specific, implausible facts from two millenia ago. Some or all of these things may have happened, or may not have. There is no way of knowing for sure.
What Easter is about is the inexorable rising of new life out of the worst humanity has to offer--death, despair, denial, betrayal, cruelty and pain.
And this happens purely by grace--not because we have earned it or deserve it.
It is the mystery of this that propels the joy of Easter morning.
When did Christianity come to be seen as a celebration of the absolute facts of history? It’s called the Christian faith, not the Christian certainty.
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