Let the mystery be

We have the same conversation every year this time of year. A good, annually evolving conversation about life, the universe, and everything, and it always starts with the same question: Why is the most important feast in Christianity centered around sorrow and suffering; death. Betrayal leads to execution. What is there to celebrate? With all that is going on and has been going on in the world, how are we supposed to feel? All the fear, cowardice, shame and loss, all the drama and violence of what is known as Holy Week… how are we supposed to respond?

Some in this world can't help but lash out, some try to help out. Some clam up and some gobble up whatever lie makes them feel less anxious and insecure. Just like the twelve Apostles, we are only human, doomed to doze or wander off when we should be paying attention, doomed to tire, anger, fear, be wrong and do wrong, doomed to fail every now and then. But even then, Jesus would not judge. Even on Good Friday, the day of his public humiliation and execution, his thoughts were with his mother, and the man crucified next to him.

It seems to me that judge not lest you be judged is not an all-encompassing reproof but a gentle reminder. We will get it wrong, do wrong, say the wrong thing no matter how hard we try. And that’s okay, that’s human. Just keep trying to do better, be better. Face your fallible nature. And face the evil in ourselves and all around us. A fourth man dies in our story, a man who forces us to confront our capacity for avarice, betrayal and cruelty. How is his life or his death any less important? Judas ends up making a choice he quickly regrets and can't atone for or reconcile. He ends up taking his own life. Is he the villain? Is he beyond salvation? Is he Satan? Or is he just one of us?

And what went through Mary’s mind as she watched her son die? Did she see a way forward, a future? There was nothing the women huddled under that cross could do but support and carry one another. How dark and desolate Holy Saturday must have been for those who knew and loved Jesus. He died a violent, agonizing death, and they could not change that, only grieve. Holy Sunday morning was no brighter, Mary Magdalene crying by his now empty tomb. “Why are you crying?” Jesus asks as he appears. He did not start preaching or teaching, he did not tell her to stop. He did not rebuke her or turn away, he simply asked a question, and he listened. Do we have the strength to do the same? To face and listen to those who are lost or who have suffered a loss? To just be there for someone in their hour of need?

And why did Jesus have to suffer like that? And his resurrection, that’s where the story gets tricky and the details fuzzy. How did that happen? You’re not asking me, are you, because the only thing I’m sure of is that I don’t know. It’s where the here and now and the hereafter meet? Theology can’t prove it, other sciences disprove it, so it’s simply a matter of faith? What if you don’t understand? What if there is no explanation? Must there always be a plan, or a prize? What if the Easter story is the parable? We can all see ourselves and others, every human emotion in that story of light and dark and benevolence and evil and hope and senseless suffering. Despite everything, life goes on. In the here and now, maybe even in the hereafter. Is that the underlying message, the moral of the story?

My family tree is a gnarled old thing with roots spanning across Europe, so when it comes to religion, I don’t know what to believe. I mean that quite literally. It’s a Take Your Pick Buffet of denominations. I’ve had to navigate my way, consolidate it all, come to my own conclusions. But you don’t have to subscribe to any religion to find the message meaningful or traditions beautiful, or to appreciate the comfort and community church and faith provide. And you don’t have to believe in a deity or any type of afterlife to want to do the right thing, feel charitable, be empathetic and compassionate, to love and love unconditionally. My maternal grandmother taught me that. The Bay of All Saints taught me that. And life keeps teaching me that.

Happy Easter, chag Pesach samech, or just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum weekend, dearest denizens, whatever you believe, wherever you are.