So when my older kung fu brother looked at me and told me to lead the class, I should have been fine with it.  But I wasn’t.  I was terrified.  And suddenly, I could not remember any of the names of anything.  I became an idiot, or at least a more recognizable idiot.  I could not remember any of the Chinese word.  I could not count in Chinese.  It’s one thing to do something.  It’s something else to try and do it right and be an example.  And it is still another thing to try and tell other people what to do.

I got used to leading class.  And in a couple of years, I had my own class.  And then I learned a very valuable lesson.  Nothing teaches you how to do something like having to teach someone else how to do it.  First of all, you suddenly realize that you don’t know things quite as well as you thought you did.  People ask you questions and you come to the realization that you do not have all the answers.  And you’re supposed to have all the answers because that’s the reason they’re asking you all the questions.  If you’re honest, you tell them you don’t know.  And if you’re not, you make up some bullshit.  And if you’re really good, you tell them something that makes no sense at all and hope they just nod their heads and think the reason it makes no sense at all is because they just don’t understand it because it’s so deep and profound.

After a few years of leading classes, I came to really learn what it was I was supposed to know before I ever got a class.  It was leading classes that taught me the names for things.  But that’s the way it goes.  You don’t really learn until you have to.  I didn’t really come to understand math until I had to teach it to a bunch of ten-year-olds.  You think you understand math?  Try explaining division of fractions to somebody.  I don’t mean How to Do It—although I imagine a lot of you have forgotten how to do that—but explaining what dividing a fraction actually means.  That’s hard.  You can have all the driving lessons you want, but it’s driving a car every day to work and back that teaches you how to drive.  And if you want to drive really well, teach somebody ELSE how to drive.

I think that Jesus understood that.  Well, not the driving a car part so much, but I think he understood  The Learning How to Do Stuff part.  I’m pretty sure, anyway.   That’s why he knew that he had to go.  I mean, let’s face it.  One might ask oneself (as well one might) why God, or the Son of God, would bother to come down to earth, give a message, and then leave.  If you are the divine, and you’re going to go to all the trouble of incarnating yourself in order to set things straight, why not just stick around until things get sorted out, maybe even hang out for a few centuries?  But he didn’t.  He came down.  He did a lot of cool stuff.  He died.  He rose again.  And then he visited his pals and, in the words of the great late Groucho Marx, said, “Hello, I must be going.”  And he went back up to heaven.  That’s what the Gospel According to Mark says.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them,
was taken up into heaven
and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them
and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

I find it interesting to note that Jesus did not tell them to go off by themselves to some tall mountain and meditate for years until they found enlightenment.  He told them to go into the world.  That’s because he understood that you find God in the way people dance at weddings and in the way that mothers look into their children’s eyes.  You find God in the simple satisfaction of doing a hard day’s work.  You find God in building something and in laughing at a funny joke, and in holding a good friend close while s/he weeps into your shoulder.

He told them to proclaim the good news, the radical idea that God doesn’t punish you for who you are, the good news that God is love and that loves surrounds us all.  Jesus told them to tell the world that all life is sacred and divine, that salvation comes through loving one another and caring for one another and comforting one another.  Isaiah, the prophet, proclaimed that the messiah would come and show us God is with us.  That’s what Jesus was teaching—God is with us.  God is everywhere around us.  We are not alone, not ever.

But the only way you can ever really come to understand that is to live that.  You have to go out into the world.  You have to be with people.  You have to live the message of Christ.  You have to comfort.  You have to lift people up.  It is only in proclaiming the message of Christ that you come to understand the real message of Christ, that God loves ALL the people—not just them good ol’ God Fearin’ Born Agains—but ALL the people, the lost, the poor, the gays, the immigrants, the illegal aliens, the teen mothers, the drug addicts, the cops—yes, even the Wallstreet bankers.

That’s why Jesus had to go.  We would never have found that out for ourselves if we hadn’t found it out for ourselves.  It wasn’t enough that he told us that.  We had to learn it for ourselves.  But we never could have done that if he were still around.  We would have still been sitting around listening to him teach the same lessons over and over again.  How many times do you have to tell people that the meaning of life is to love one another before they figure out what the hell you’re trying to tell them?  Jesus had to come so that we could have salvation, and he had to leave so that we could find it.

Recently, my kung fu teacher, my master, my Sifu, passed away.  He was a great man and a great teacher.  Since his passing I have come to understand what learning truly means.  Now I’m the one.  Now I’m the one that has to pass things on, and passing things on correctly has become very, very important in way it wasn’t before.  That’s because it’s up to me to do it right.  He’s not here anymore to do it himself.

This has been a long time complaint I have with many churchly folks.  They spend a long time reading the bible.  And while I have nothing at all against reading the bible (obviously), quite the contrary, it seems they never actually do any of the things the bible says unless it involves punishing people for doing things of which people in the tenth century before Christ disapproved.  One might ask oneself (as well one might) how many times you have to read a message of love and compassion before you actually go out and start being loving and compassionate.  How many times do you have to read a recipe before you actually cook something?

And if you’ve ever noticed, it’s the cooking something that really teaches you the recipe.  And to really learn to cook, the supervising chef has to leave and let you make your own mistakes for awhile until you get it right.  I’m still trying to get things right.  I’m still learning new things about kung fu every day.  I also still hear my teacher’s words in my ears as I practice.  I know I will as long as I live.  I’m also still trying to learn how to live out Christ’s message of love and service, to see God in everywhere.  I hear his words also.  We live in love.

Saint John, one of those guys who followed Jesus around, said, “Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”  Could there really be any greater salvation?  Everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.  Is there anyone, any creature, that does not love?  To live without love—there could be no hell any worse than that.  We are all of us children of God.  That’s the lesson Jesus came to teach us, and he had to go back to heaven for us to learn it.

I also knew I would have to face the woman who lived with her and helped her out in exchange for free rent. Twice, I caught this person stealing from my mother. Checks were forged and altered. We tried to convince my mother to send this woman packing, but she wouldn’t. My mother forgave everything.

So while I was on my way to what I knew was going to be an aggravating day, I could not help but wonder why I was doing it. I mean, my mother was an alcoholic all her life. True, she could be sober for a months at a time, but she always had her relapses, as do most addicts. I know that because of her addiction, I did not have a “normal” childhood in any sense of the word. I know that many of the problems I have today are due to the way I was raised—or not raised, as some would say. My mother nearly got me killed on a couple of occasions, thanks to her drinking, but those are other stories. Let’s just say that I had every reason to push her away. My life would have been a lot easier if I had just left her on her own with her own problems. God knows I didn’t need any more problems than I already had.

But there I was, on the road, in a rental, driving for over two hours to see her. Of course, I knew why I was making that drive. It was because of love. Of course, you expected that, so I’ll tell you another story. That week, as this one, we were administering standardized tests. Now logic might tell you that when the social worker called and asked if there was any way that I could come up to Bakersfield before Saturday, I would, of course, simply call in sick, drop everything, and head on up there. But I didn’t. I didn’t because those kids wouldn’t do as well on the test if a substitute administered it. It’s not that we give the test differently; there is a script we have to read. But there is something in the sound of a familiar voice that gives the students confidence, that puts their minds at ease. My students needed me, so I said there was no way for me to go to Bakersfield until Saturday.

Any reasonable person would feel that my obligation to my mother was far greater than any obligation I had to my job, or to a bunch of strangers’ kids. But I could not let those kids down. It wasn’t about my job. It was about those kids. They needed me. So I put off my trip to Bakersfield until the weekend. I did that out of love. It would be what my mother would have wanted me to do. It would be the way the sort of person she wanted me to be would behave. And so, in doing this, I show my love for my mother and for my students.

This is not the type of sappy love that you see in Disney flicks, or the type that those “born again” evangelicals talk about. This is a deeper love. According to Jesus, we are called upon to love one another. We love one another; but we don’t have to like one another. I don’t have to always like my mom. But I love her. I don’t have to always like my students, but I love them. And because I love them, I have an obligation to them. It is not an obligation that I take on out of duty. There is no external thought of selflessness that causes me to do these things. I do these things because it is what I MUST do. There is no choice in that matter. I could not NOT do them.

Because we love, we do what has to be done. That is why parents must sometimes stand back and watch their children face the consequences of their actions when it would be much easier to step in and fix everything. That is why we put up with the people we marry, even though they can be really obnoxious from time to time, even though we don’t always like them. That is why my beautiful wife puts up with an asshole like me. That is why soldiers throw themselves on grenades to save their buddies. It’s why firefighters run into burning buildings, something that makes no good sense at all. It’s why moms and dads get up early to make lunches for their kids to take to school. It’s why they get up in the middle of the night to care for a human too little to have any real personality to like.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”

And if you don’t believe those are really the words of Jesus, then look at what his follower, John, wrote in one of his letters:

Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

To love one another—that is our only commandment. It’s the only thing that God wants from us. Being a Christian doesn’t have anything to do with being gay or straight. It has nothing to do with sex. It has nothing to do with drugs, or liquor, or smoking, or dancing, or creationism, Darwinism, evolution, or any of those things. It doesn’t even really have to do with believing that Jesus was God. It has to do with keeping that one commandment—to love one another. Not to like one another, but to love one another. Life is love and love is life. All of the commandments are contained in this one word.

Saint Martin was the most famous saint in all of Western Europe during the middle ages. He was known for one particular act. He was a Roman general. He led the legions in the area we now call Germany. His legions were pagans, but they respected Martin, a Christian, for one deed. Once, on the emperor’s business, Martin and his soldiers came upon a starving, naked beggar along the road. Being unable to stop and care for the man, Martin took off his cloak, a general’s cloak and quite expensive, and gave it to the poor wretch, along with some food. This act of charity impressed his troops. Soon, this act of kindness was known throughout all of the empire.

Later, Charlemagne (another relative of mine, by the way), the Holy Roman Emperor, obtained this relic, and placed it in a church he built. It is from this cape, “capela” in Latin, that we get the word “chapel”. This Christian church was built on an act of love. In fact, the entire Christian church was built upon an act of love, the sacrifice of Christ. Do not let the fact that the church has failed miserably on countless occasions to spread the love of God throughout the world, distract you for the message of Jesus the Christ. His message is clear. All we have, we have from God (or whatever you want to call that force). And all God wants in return is that we love one another, not out of duty, but because it is what we do.

And that is why I was on the road to Bakersfield that week. And it is why I was on the road to Bakersfield again and again and again, until that day that I no longer had a reason to go there, and on that day, I wept.  She taught me how to love. I will continue to do what must be done for my students until the day I retire. And I will keep giving money to that guy on the freeway on ramp with the bad leg. I will do this because and the love of God lives in me, not because I love God, or know God, but because God loves me. God knows me. By the way, God loves you too. So do I.

Brahms nodded, carefully examining the wine – inhaling its bouquet, swirling it in his glass, and holding it up to the light – before setting it down without further comment.

“How do you like it?” the host asked with anticipation. “Well,” Brahms replied, “better bring out your Beethoven.”

I love a good wine. People have been making wine for over 8,000 years. Wine residue has been identified in ceramic jars from Neolithic sites at Shulaveri, of present-day Georgia. Of course, it wasn’t all about getting drunk, although there’s nothing wrong with that. It has not always been that safe to drink the water. The alcohol in wine, when mixed with water, made for a safe beverage. And we know now that wine is good for you. People who drink wine moderately live longer. Wine is good. So it shouldn’t surprise us that wine is such a central symbol in religion.

We all know it. You are what you eat (and drink). Food and drink are life. They are central to our lives. Wherever people gather, you will find food and drink. It is a part of every celebration. We wouldn’t think of having a wedding without a reception. You cannot have a wedding reception without a toast to the happy couple. The first miracle Jesus performs is changing water into wine, according to the gospel of John. Later in John, Jesus uses the image of wine to teach about our relationship with God.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me
will be thrown out like a branch and wither;
people will gather them and throw them into a fire
and they will be burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” (John, Chapter 15, 1-18)

Now of course, Jesus may never have actually said this. The Gospel of John was written very late, at least seventy years after the death of Jesus. But whether Jesus said it, or whether John was using this story to illustrate his understanding of the godhead, it doesn’t really matter. The truth of the story is still the same. Strip away the dogma and the message is the same.

The metaphor is clear. Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. God is the vine grower. God is not the wine maker. The vine grower is the one who goes around the vines after the picking; he examines the vines, sees where the vine has to be cut back to promote new growth in the next season. S/He cuts back the vines, cuts them back to the stock. The vineyard is bare in the winter, but come spring and the vines shoot out, they blossom and the fruit forms. The success of the new vintage depends on the careful work of the vine grower. But the wine depends on the grapes.

You need all three to produce good wine. Jesus wants us to know that the grapes, the vine, the branches, even the vine grower, all are one in the process, and all necessary. Moreover, the hardships we face are necessary for good fruit to grow. Jesus also tells us that as God has loved him, so he has loved us. Turn that around and you see that also means as he has loved us, so God has loved him. We abide in him. He abides in us. God abides in him. So God also abides in us. So we are one. We are holy. In fact, he even says so. He says that we are made holy.

We are what we eat. Consider the symbolism of the last supper, of our relationship of God symbolized in the Eucharist, communion. Seeds are grown, nurtured by the farmer, and harvested. From the wheat comes bread to sustain us. Vines are planted by the vine grower. The fruit is harvested. From the grapes comes the wine that helps to bring flavour to our lives. Jesus says “This is my blood.” This wine is life itself. From the bread we make, from the wine we make, comes life.

We are part of the process of making wine. As such, we are holy. From this idea, there can come no condemnation. It is karma pure and simple. Our lives are the wine we produce. We are the branches. We produce the grapes. I would love to think that the grapes I produce make a nice pinot noir, full of rich body, warm and fruity. Of course, I know that sometimes I’m lucky if I can punch out a cheap bottle of Night Train. But I keep trying. I would be happy if my grapes could mix and age and produce a fine Brahms. But at the moment, for some reason I have a craving for cheese and crackers, and a nice glass of pinot blanc.

The ceremony is a coming out of sorts. In the past, it was used as a “coming out” for young women, to make known to the men of the community that the girl was now available to court, with marriage the ultimate goal. It is very much in appearance like a wedding. The young lady generally wears a white gown. She is escorted by consorts, several young men and women, much like bridesmaids and groomsmen. There is a Mass said in the church. And afterwards, there is a fabulous party, with dancing and food and drink. Mariachi bands are hired. There are a number of traditions. Godparents present the young lady with a bible and a rosary. The young lady, known as the quinceaniera, dances one last dance as a child with her father. She gives one of her old toys to a sibling as a symbol of the end of childhood. It is all quite beautiful, really.

This one was different, however. When we arrived at the church, we found it beautifully decorated, as is usually the case. There were lovely spring flowers on every pew. There were beautiful garlands of white and red. There was a chair, covered in white satin, in front of the sanctuary, on which the young lady would sit. We sat and waited for the church to fill. It never did. There were less than a dozen people there to see the young lady dedicate herself to God.

Then the service began. The party entered, much like a wedding. First came the escorts, then came the parents. Next came the god parents, the madrinos. And then finally, came the quinceaniera herself, in a beautiful blue gown. They all took their places and the priest began the Mass. “En el nombre del Padre, el Hijo, y el Spiritu Santo.” He began the prayer. He then asked the parents if the girl had made her first communion, as most Catholic children do at seven or so. She hadn’t. The priest was not pleased. He said nothing, but you could tell by his countenance he was not happy. As the Mass wore on, he had to tell the people when to stand, when to sit, and when to kneel. There was no one there to do the readings, so he had to do them himself.

As I looked around, I was struck by the tragedy of it all. Here was a lovely church, beautifully decorated. Here were the escorts in the lovely gowns and tuxedos. The quinceaniera stood there in her beautiful gown. But the church was empty, and so was the ceremony. It was obvious that these people were not regular churchgoers. They didn’t even know what to do and when. The young lady herself, was years past the time for her first communion. They were in the church this day out of formality, because it’s what you do. But the ceremony meant nothing to them. Was this girl going to dedicate herself to a God she did not even know?

Jesus said:
“I am the good shepherd.
A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
A hired man, who is not a shepherd
and whose sheep are not his own,
sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away,
and the wolf catches and scatters them.
This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd,
and I know mine and mine know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;
and I will lay down my life for the sheep.
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.
These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice,
and there will be one flock, one shepherd.
This is why the Father loves me,
because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.
I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.
This command I have received from my Father.” (John, Chapter 10, 11-18)

Now maybe Jesus said this or not. Maybe this never even happened. Regardless, what it shows is absolute rejection. This story takes place near the end of his ministry. Prior to saying this, he was rejected by the Pharisees. Directly after this, he would be rejected by the people he said he came to save. He would be tortured and executed. And, according to John, he knew this—at least according to the story. So here Jesus is, saying that he is going to be laying down his life for his sheep. He will be giving his life so that they may have life. And almost to steel his resolve, he reminds himself that he is doing this of his own free will.

Up until Jesus, the religion of the people was all about death. Sacrifices were offered at the temple. There was death in the house of God every day. According to the beliefs of the Jews, death entered into the world because of the sins of Adam and Eve. Jesus came to teach that God was not about death. God is about life. Jesus said he came to offer life, and life more abundant. Jesus taught that God is not a big, scary, imaginary king in the sky, someone to punish you for your failures, but a loving parent who promises to give you all you need.

If the Christian faith were just about Jesus dying for our sins, then he would have stayed up on that cross. But the Christian faith is about life, and living life to its fullest. We are not condemned. We are not a bunch of miserable sinners. We are the children of God, the brothers and sisters of Christ, each of us a temple of the holy spirit in the most real way, not just in a churchly way. The point of the story is not that he died on a cross, but that he walked out of a tomb.

Jesus healed the blind. All around us we see the spiritually blind, wandering aimlessly, missing the glories of creation all around them. We see others run after strange gods, worn out rituals that don’t express the gift Christ came to give. We see others wrapped in their power and position which their wealth gives. We live in a world scarred by violence, violence of every kind. Jesus knew us because he was us. Jesus knew what it was to fail, to feel rejection. He showed us that the key to life was to love, to love with all our hearts.

He is still rejected, even by those of his own fold. They decorate his churches. They go through the motions. The pews are often filled. But many of his followers are still blind. They say the prayers, but do not feel the spirit. Today, a girl read a prayer dedicating her life to God in empty syllables that held no meaning for her. Her family accepted the church, but rejected its source.

Others, the children of God, are rejected by churches that seem to feel them not worthy to be a part of the flock. They are the outcasts, the sinners, the homosexuals, the women who have had abortions, the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the Protestants, the Catholics, the Hindus, the Muslims; the whoever doesn’t fit the image of that particular faith. This is the saddest injustice of all, that the believers in God would try to withhold that divine spirit from anybody.

In the end, this is a message of hope. Jesus does not say that any of his sheep are lost. He says we are one flock. There is no one cast out. He says that we will hear his voice. We cannot be separated from God. As the Zen Buddhists, the Taoists, and the Hindus know already, any separation from God that we feel is pure illusion. God is with us, even now. That was the prophecy, “And he shall be called Emmanuel.” Emmanuel means, “God is with us.”

God was there in that church during the quinceaniera, there in the love those parents felt for their daughter, there in the few people who did come to be with her on this special day. It is my prayer that one day, she will open her eyes and heart to the love that is all around her. This is my prayer for the world. For on that day we open our hearts to the love of God, we will open the gates to Eden and come home.

How ironic it is that such would be the greeting in the very part of the world that seems to suffer so much conflict. You look at countries like Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, and Afghanistan, and there seems to be very little peace. We all hope for peace. But what is peace? Is it only a cessation of “againstness”?

In the Gospel According to John, after Jesus has died, when the disciples were all hiding in the upper room, Jesus comes to them. Imagine how they must have felt. They would have been terrified. Their teacher had just been killed. Surely, the temple leaders would be coming for them next. Would they be suffering the same fate as Jesus? Peter had denied even knowing Jesus three times after his arrest. And as they are hiding, and no doubt talking about what to do next, they look up and see Jesus standing there.

“Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

What kind of peace is this that he is wishing them? The dictionary tells us that peace means “freedom from disputes”, or “the absence of war”, or “the absence of mental stress or anxiety”. Knowing the sort of fates each of them would meet, he surely could not have meant “peace” in the common understanding of the word. Of course, he could have simply meant it as the common greeting. He could have just meant “howdy”. Somehow, though, it seems to me that if you had just risen from the dead, you might not simply announce yourself to your followers with a “how do you do” as you materialize in the room.

Peace is a blessing we all desire. We even put it on our tombstones—“rest in peace”. What sort of peace do the dead have anyway? If you really are dead, nothing, gone, null, empty, then there is no peace. There is no anything. There may be an end to anxiety, but an end of anxiety does not mean happiness. In fact, who says that an end of anxiety would make us happy? If peace is then end of all our challenges, then who wants it? That isn’t a blessing. That is boredom.

Jesus could not have meant peace in the sense of “the absence of war.” As a resurrected messenger of God, he must have known that the Romans would, in a few short years, raze the temple and the city, putting thousands of Jews to the sword and forcing others to flee. All but one of his inner circle of followers would die horribly violent deaths. And while there may be peace in defeat, as in the end of fighting, there is no peace of mind in being vanquished. Ask anyone who has lost a game.

Perhaps he was referring to a different type of peace. John tells us that earlier, before he was arrested and executed, he told his followers, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” He was trying to comfort his students, knowing that he was to be taken from them. He was trying to reassure them. He was trying to tell them not to be troubled; he would be back. He also told them, “’Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

Now I start to understand a little. I can remember going to a Lakers basketball games. They were playing against the Los Angeles Clippers. Now if you know anything about the Clippers, you know that they are about the worst basketball team ever. So there never was any doubt about the outcome. So, being a Laker fan, I had nothing to worry about. I could sit back and enjoy the slaughter. Even when the Clippers scored, there was no worry there. There was no chance of them winning. The Lakers knew that too. That was the peace of triumph.

Of course, the Lakers couldn’t sit back and do nothing. They still had to play their best. There was still a challenge there. There still was a game to be won. There just wasn’t any question of who was going to win. The Lakers knew they were a better team. The fans knew the Lakers were a better team. Hell, even the Clippers knew the Lakers were a better team. We all had the peace that comes from knowing.

That’s the peace that Jesus was talking about. That is the peace we pray for everyday. That is the peace the dead have come to know. That is the peace we offer one another. Each day, in every Mass said, everywhere in the world, Catholics exchange a sign of peace. Some places this is a handshake. In others, a kiss. In Japan, it is a polite bow. It is our way of reminding one another that God is with us, and, as Saint Paul says, “if God be for us, who can be against us?” I mean, they can kill you, but so what?

Samurai warriors were able to meet on the field of battle at perfect peace with their opponent as they tried to kill one another. They were at peace because they understood that it didn’t matter who won, who lived and who died. In the end, it was all the same. So what if you die? Death is not the end of you. There is no end of you. There is no end of anyone. There is no end, only change. Thus, war and peace can coexist side by side.

I can remember, way back when I was in high school, a time when I was in a good little bit of trouble—never mind what. But I knew that my parents were probably going to kill me when they found out about it. I also knew that I would have to tell them, because if they heard about it from the school, then they would kill me, bring me back from the dead, and then kill me again. I was terrified. So I asked my best friend at the time to come with me. There wasn’t anything he could do, but I felt better knowing that I wasn’t alone. Nobody wants to be alone, especially when facing trouble.

Jesus offered his followers the peace of knowing that we are never separated from God. We have never been separated from God, regardless of all that crap about Eve, the snake, and the garden. God is always with us, and in the end, we will triumph, no matter what we have to face. That is what faith is all about, and that is why faith brings peace, not as the dictionary defines peace, but a peace that is beyond any kind of human understanding. And so we pray for this peace. We work for this peace. We hope for this peace. I wish it for you, and I hope you wish it for me. Peace be with you. Peace out.

Life was hard. One survivor wrote, “Life in the concentration camp was inhumane. One could not trust anyone because there were spies, even amongst the prisoners. All of us were selfish at heart. With so many being assassinated all around, the hope was that others would be assassinated and that we could survive; our animal instincts took over because of hunger.” Yet Father Kolbe did his best to bring comfort to those around him. He prayed with them. He tried, in his way, to bring some peace to their troubled hearts.

On the night of August 3, 1941 a prisoner assigned in the same section as Father Kolbe escaped. As a reprisal, the camp commander ordered that 10 random prisoners be chosen to be executed. Among the men chosen was Polish Sergeant, Franciszek Gajowniczek, who was married with children. Maximilian, who was not one of the 10 chosen to be executed, offered himself to die in the Sergeant’s place. The commander of the concentration camp accepted the exchange and Maximilian was condemned to die of starvation together with the other nine prisoners. Days after the condemnation, since he was still alive, they administered a lethal injection on the 14th of August, 1941.

On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.

Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

People have trouble with the whole resurrection thing. “Zombie Jesus”, I’ve heard said. I can understand that. We don’t see a lot of dead people coming back to life. It just doesn’t happen in our world. So people don’t believe that Jesus is alive. He died up on that cross. It wasn’t any different back then. Thomas didn’t believe either. I can relate to that. I’m a lot like Thomas. I have a hard time believing in things. I even have a hard time believing in things I see, let alone the things I can’t. I would have been like Thomas. Jesus is alive? Yeah, right. What you been smoking? People have a hard time believing the disciples saw Jesus after he died.

But in November of 2008, In his last act, a young man who was shot and killed, shoved others out of harm’s way when gunfire erupted outside a community center in Pacific, Washington. The Mayor, Rich Hildreth , said witnesses had reported that when the shooting started outside the Pacific Community Center, 21-year-old Shiloh Drott pushed others out of the line of fire before he himself was fatally shot. “From all of the reports that we’ve had from a lot of the people in the room, the main reason no one else got hit was Shiloh actually pushed some of the other kids out of the way,” Hildreth said.

Let me tell you about another person. Anne Gallagher is a former nurse from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. She tended to victims of bombs and bullets on both sides of the sectarian divide, as well as many police officers and soldiers. Having a father and three brothers imprisoned, she has experienced the pain of having close relatives put in jail and killed. Her brother Dominic, a former IRA member, became leader of the Irish National Liberation Army and was, at the time, the most wanted man in Ireland. After his release from prison, he was shot dead by unknown gunmen.

Anne founded Seeds of Hope, an organization that uses storytelling, based on the conflict in Northern Ireland, called “The Troubles”, through music, art, drama, writing and sport. This has lead to similar work being carried out in prisons, schools and communities in Sweden, Belgium and here in the United States. In her own words:

“Forgiveness isn’t something that’s talked about with reconciliation, but it’s needed to bring closure to the pain and suffering experienced in Northern Ireland. You can’t contemplate hope unless you address despair. To heal the wounds of Northern Ireland I believe you have to see humanity in the face of the enemy. But forgiveness is a journey. Today you can forgive and tomorrow you can feel pain all over again. I’m not a religious person, but for me forgiveness is about grace. To be able to forgive someone who has hurt you is a moment of grace. My mother is my driving force. She has such a respect for every single soul – even for the police officers and soldiers who raided our house and caused her so much pain.

“I grew up in Country Derry in a very happy family, one of four sisters and seven brothers. I’d just started nursing when my father and three of my brothers were interned without trial. It was this that got my other brothers involved in The Troubles. In the hospital Intensive Care Unit, I would nurse victims from all sides. Seeing them lying there, naked and attached to life support machines, I didn’t see a uniform, I just saw their hearts, their pain. The conflict was everywhere: out on the streets, in people’s houses, at the end of your bed during night raids, when you’d wake up to find uniformed men in your room. My brother Dominic was murdered in front of his young son, who had previously, with his other young brother, seen his mother shot as she bathed them. I absolutely loved my brothers. I didn’t judge them at all.

“With the Seeds of Hope project, we encourage people not to judge others. We listen to people’s stories, but we don’t judge them. There’s healing in that. The idea is that when you hear my story and I hear your story, it becomes our story, and seeds of hope are sown.”

You know, we spend a lot of time and energy thinking and talking about the things we don’t believe. Sometimes it’s important to think about the things we DO believe.  I believe in love. And love is all around us.

You hear stories about people like Father Kolbe, Shiloh Drott, and Anne, and you have to know that yes, Jesus is alive today. Jesus is alive in each one of us. Touch the humanity of Jesus, and you touch the divine. We are the hands of God on earth. Two guys see Jesus on the road, according to the gospels, and we think that’s nuts. The disciples see Jesus on the shore while they’re fishing and we think that’s a load of shit. Well, I see Jesus all the time. I see Jesus in Jeff Dietrich, who, along with others with The Catholic Worker, are feeding people every day on skid row. I see Jesus in that little girl who was comforting her friend whose parents are getting divorced out on the playground today. You may think that Jesus of Nazareth died up on that cross, but I tell you that he lives.

Along the walls stand the both the people who had no idea that so many people went to church on Easter Sunday, and the regular parishioners, who simply forgot that there was anything out of the ordinary about this particular Sunday, and so went about their regular Sunday morning routine, breakfast, showers, coffee, newspaper, before toddling off to mass. Some of the people in the church have enough of a belief in the all mighty to feel the necessity of showing God they really do believe, they just don’t see the need to go crazy and do something like go to church every week. After all, God is everywhere, isn’t He? You don’t have to go to church to be close to God. God is wherever you are. That’s what they say.

I call these folks the C and E Christians, Christmas and Easter. They come twice a year. Either they grew up in some kind of church and get a certain amount of comfort coming to church on those holidays, or they just feel like you ought to show God some respect, and twice a year ought to about do it. Some of them aren’t even Catholic. They just went to the biggest, closest church to them. Others just think of Catholicism when they think of Jesus. And this holiday is all about Jesus, isn’t it? One priest I heard referred to these folks as his poinsettias and lilies. He asked us to be especially patient and kind with them. Who knows? They might come back. They might.

My question this Easter isn’t so much about why people go to church as it is about why people don’t. There is a reason I am a Christian, and not a Zoroastrian, Rosicrucian, Hindu, or any of the other perfectly wonderful religions. And it is true that there is nothing incompatible about being Buddhist, Taoist, or even Muslim, and Christian at the same time. They don’t preclude one another—sort of. I mean, if you get really dogmatic about any of them, there are elements of each that contradict one another. But then, that’s why there are different faiths. If you look at the simple message of all the world’s religions, you find that it is more or less the same—a belief in a higher power, the transcendental divine power of love, the joy of compassion. The Christian faith has something that none of the other religions have, however. Christianity has Jesus.

Either you believe in Jesus, or you don’t. That’s really the bottom line of the faith. When it comes to making some kind of decision about Christianity and what it means, you have to come to some conclusion about Jesus. You have to decide if he really lived. You have to decide if he did what they say he did, rise from the dead. That is what Easter is all about. Did he get up and walk out of the tomb? Many folks will say that he did not because that is not their experience. People do not wake up from being dead. So Jesus could not have done that. But it seems clear that something must have happened. People try to start religions all the time and fail. Why did this one grow to be so successful?

There is no serious doubt that Jesus lived. The organized atheists out there often try to say that Jesus is a composite of other early mystery religions, but no scholars buy into that. We have the secular writings of Josephus and Tristan to confirm that Jesus lived. Moreover, the bible story itself is the best proof. That is, if you were going to make up a God, you would most certainly make up a better one than Jesus. He failed at everything. People would not make up a God that dies a criminal’s death. Other religions had gods that died and rose again, but they didn’t die like that. They died in battle. And if you were one of the followers of this new religion, you wouldn’t make your early leaders look so bad. They run away. They hide. They refuse to believe in their own master. No, if you were going to make something up, you’d do a better job of it. Jesus lived. And he died. But did he rise? That is the question.

Well, if he didn’t, then a lot of people are lying. The Romans lied, the Jewish leaders lied, and the followers of Jesus lied. They either lied, or were fooled. But put yourself in the place of those first century people. If you were a Roman or Jewish leader, the last thing you would want is for this false prophet to become a martyr. You would know that he claimed he was going to rise up and you would want to make damn sure that everybody knew that he didn’t. So if Jesus did NOT rise up, you would show everybody and produce the body. You’d show everybody. Hey look everyone! Still dead! But they obviously didn’t.

And if you were one of those followers of Jesus, what would you do? I know I would make myself scarce. If my leader were just arrested, tortured, and killed, I would get as far away from Jerusalem as possible. I’d change my name. I’d find a new line of work. I would try to lose myself in the first century world, where there were no computers to track me down and where I wouldn’t need a driver’s license for identification. I sure as hell wouldn’t try to keep the message alive. It would not require a chariot scientist to see that all that preaching would just lead to my own arrest, torture, and execution. It’s not like there was money in it. There were no Pat Robertons back then. Nobody was getting rich and famous talking about Jesus back then.

So why would I go travelling all around the ancient world organizing churches in the face of such danger? Why would I try to build up the new faith right there in Jerusalem under the very noses of the people who killed my teacher? Why would I be willing to suffer prison, torture, and even death rather than simply admit that my teacher was wrong? The only reason I can come up with is that I wouldn’t, not unless I really believed. At the very least, I would have to believe that my teacher, this Jesus, had risen from the dead, was still alive, had the truth. The gospel of Mark says:

When the Sabbath was over,
Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome
bought spices so that they might go and anoint him.
Very early when the sun had risen,
on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb.
They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us
from the entrance to the tomb?”
When they looked up,
they saw that the stone had been rolled back;
it was very large.
On entering the tomb they saw a young man
sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe,
and they were utterly amazed.
He said to them, “Do not be amazed!
You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here.
Behold the place where they laid him.
But go and tell his disciples and Peter,
‘He is going before you to Galilee;
there you will see him, as he told you.’”

The earliest versions of this gospel end with the empty tomb. Most scholars agree that the part about the young man in the white robe, his words to the women, were all added later on. This was either because none of this happened and early leaders added it to make the story more believable, or because other versions of the gospel had this story and it was added in later to fill the gap and complete the story. The first draft of Mark ended with an empty tomb. That is how it should be. We have to decide for ourselves what happened to Jesus.

Maybe somebody stole the body. But why would they do that? What would be their motive? The Romans wouldn’t do it; neither would the Jews. The disciples might, but then, why choose a life of persecution for a lie? It doesn’t make sense.

Clearly something happened two thousand years ago. There was this guy. He had a message. They killed him. Later, his tomb was empty. You have to face the challenge of the empty tomb. Mark’s gospel ends with an empty tomb. You don’t have to believe he rose up, but then, what DID happen? In my mind, whatever is left after eliminating all that doesn’t make sense, no matter how weird, is truth.

You don’t have to believe that the earth orbits the sun, but it is the only thing that makes sense. The church refused to see this for centuries and we thought they were nuts because of it. A sun centered solar system didn’t make sense in their view of creation so they stubbornly refused to believe in it, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. Are we, as a modern scientific society, any better? Many people refuse to believe that this simple guy two thousand years ago was anything more than just a wise itinerate preacher who lived, taught, and was executed by the Romans, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. But if he did not rise from the dead, then what DID happen? Why did this religion persist?

You can choose to ignore the empty tomb. I did for a long time. But that seems less than honest. And the truth of Mark’s gospel, his original gospel, keeps bringing us back to that empty tomb. Something happened with the body of Jesus, the carpenter’s son from Nazareth. You have to come to terms with that before you dismiss the claims of Christianity. Once you accept that he was, in fact, someone totally out of the ordinary, you can look for the truth in the Christian message, whatever you find that to be.

You don’t have to accept the dogma of the organized church, but you have to take a closer look at what he taught. You may not want to believe it, but then the Republicans didn’t want to believe we were in a recession either. Not wanting to believe you have diabetes won’t make the disease go away. Not wanting to believe in things doesn’t make them go away. You have to face them. Did Jesus rise up?

Today, Christian churches everywhere will be filled with people who have not given a moment’s thought to whether or not Jesus was who they say he was. They are there because they think they ought to be, either for their family, or because it’s what you do twice a year. But if you are seriously looking for truth in the universe, then you have to face the same thing that those two Marys and Salome had to face all those years ago—an empty tomb.

My mom was passed out sleeping in the bedroom. I was playing guitar in the living room. And my dad was drinking screwdrivers sitting on the couch listening to me play. He was a quiet guy, even when he was sober. My mom was a mean drunk, but my dad would get sad when he was drinking and alone. He started to talk to me, so I stopped playing and listened. He told me through tears that his life had been a failure. Here he was, fifty years old, drunk and unemployed, with no immediate prospects. He and my mom had been cleaning cabins and clearing vacant lots for a modest living. His unemployment had run out weeks before. That must have been hard to confess to his youngest son.

Now, at 57, I can understand how he felt. I am now at a stage in my life when I can look back over the years I’ve spent on this planet, and see how very little I have managed to accomplish. When I was a young man I had such high hopes. And somewhere on the way from there to here, life happened. Of course, I am very aware of all the good things I have managed to accomplish, things I never considered doing. I am far from feeling exactly the way my father did. The truth is that when you consider all the things you haven’t done, it’s easy to feel like a failure. It’s only when you think about the things you have done that you feel any sense of accomplishment. Nevertheless, I understand how he felt. It’s part of being human. Jesus felt the same way.

Since this is what most Christians consider to be Palm Sunday, a day of triumph, this might seem like an unlikely subject, but I don’t think so. Palm Sunday celebrates the day that Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey to a cheering throng of people who were placing palm fronds on the ground before him. He was welcomed like a king. Check out this version of the story from Mark:

So they brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks over it. And he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:

“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!”

He entered Jerusalem and went into the temple area. He looked around at everything and, since it was already late, went out to Bethany with the Twelve. The next day as they were leaving Bethany he was hungry. Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, he went over to see if he could find anything on it. When he reached it he found nothing but leaves; it was not the time for figs. And he said to it in reply, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again!” And his disciples heard it.

Most people think that “Hosanna” means something like “glory”, “praise to you”, or something like that, but it doesn’t. It’s a Hebrew word (duh) that means “save us!” So, in other words, as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, he is met by a crowd of people who seem to think he is a king of some kind and are asking him to save them, as in “save us from the Romans!” The people were expecting a messiah who would chase out the foreigners and re-establish their kingdom and the Davidic line of kings.

None of this had anything to do what the message that Jesus was teaching. In other words, he had failed. And he knew it. The people just didn’t get it. Jesus was teaching a message of love, humility, and service. The people still wanted someone to kick Roman ass. Instead, Jesus came into town riding one. That’s why he doesn’t hang around for all the adulation. Instead, he and his homies head out to Bethany.

Throughout his ministry Jesus met one failure after another. His friends, his disciples, still didn’t get what he was saying. They didn’t understand all this talk of his about having to die. Jesus was trying to teach about love and faith. But all the people wanted were miracles and signs. He must have felt like a complete failure. It’s no wonder that later on, in the garden, he would ask his father to take “this cup away from me.” But, in the end, he would bow to the will of his father. In spite of his failure, he would continue his walk in faith.

I include here that nasty little story about the fig tree. This story bothers a lot of people because it seems to show a rather angry and vengeful Jesus, not the guy we’re accustomed to seeing. And it would seem that way if we see it as fact. But if we see it as metaphor, it makes more sense.

There aren’t a lot of trees in the bible. So when a tree is mentioned, it might just be important. The most important tree in the bible is the one in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That nasty little collection of xylem and phloem is the source of all our trouble. If it weren’t for that tree, we’d all still be in paradise. So Jesus curses the tree. Moreover, the tree is a failure. It bears no fruit. Of course, we are told that it wasn’t time for the tree to bear fruit. It was not yet time for the ministry of Jesus to bear fruit either. That wouldn’t happen until after his death and resurrection. So in that sense, the tree is Jesus. He is cursing himself. He has born no fruit. Jesus is hungry, but the tree does not give him what he wants. The people are hungry, hungry for freedom, and Jesus has not given them what they want. They don’t understand that he offers a different kind of freedom, freedom from fear.

In addition, you will note that the tree is a fig tree. They are leaves from the fig tree that Adam and Eve use to cover their nakedness, their shame. So now the tree stands as a symbol of human shame and imperfection and our need to hide it. Jesus proclaims that that tree will never bear any fruit. We will never get anywhere if we spend our lives lost in guilt and shame. We need to drop those fig leaves and stand free in our own metaphoric nakedness.

According to all the gospel narratives, Jesus will feel a failure even on the cross. He will call out to the father, “My God, My God. Why have you forsaken me?” He will be abandoned by nearly all his followers and die alone on the cross, but for his mother and one disciple, John. It might also be mentioned that they hung Jesus upon a tree–the cross.

So during this time of Lent, we can hope that we can learn to accept our imperfections, to accept who we are. We can hope to recognize that we are not the people we would like to be, but we are the people we are. Lent is not a time to think on our failures and repent of them. It is a time to learn to love ourselves, love ourselves for who we are. It is easy to hate ourselves for what we have failed to do. We have to learn to love ourselves for all that we do accomplish. Like Jesus, we feel like failures, but we determine ourselves to continue that walk in faith. We may never know the good we have done, the lives we have touched.

We come out of Lent trying to do just a little better, day by day, one day at a time. We come out of Lent walking away from our failures and looking forward to the future. Faith comes in when we accept that, in the end, we will have done all that we were supposed to do. We will have many more failures in our lives. We will fall. But we will pick ourselves up and keep on walking.

My father may have felt like a failure that day, drunk and unemployed. But in a few months he would get a new job. And in a few years, after some very hard times, he would get a great job as chief of the fire department at Pacific State Mental Hospital. He would personally save many lives that were in jeopardy. His three children would all grow up, graduate college, and have fulfilling lives. He would have grandchildren whom he loved more than life itself. He would touch many lives in a positive way. He was a good man. He did his best, and that is all anyone can ask.

So when I feel like a failure, I remember him. And I remember Jesus in the garden. Times get hard. Sometimes the trials we face seem insurmountable. But we keep on going. Today I may be a failure, but God loves me anyway. There’s no need to hide. God loves me and I love you and there is always, always, tomorrow.

It takes a good six months to train for a marathon. You have to run six days a week. Each week, you run a little farther. Every Saturday, you take your long run. In the beginning, that could be as short as five miles, but eventually, it becomes the full twenty-six. During those six months you go through a lot of Advil and Ben Gay. You also move around pretty slowly on Sundays. In other words, it hurts.

Many people I knew, including my doctor, thought I was nuts to do it. Why would someone want to run twenty-six miles? Why would you put yourself through that? Your body is only built to go twenty, you know. After twenty miles you have actually burned all the glycogen you have and you start to burn muscle tissue. That’s why the twenty mile mark is called “the wall”. That’s where you run out of gas. After that, you are running on sheer spirits alone.

Running a marathon puts your body through a whole new world of hurt, a hurt you never thought existed. Throughout the race your body screams at you to stop. Your feet ache with each step you take. All along the way, there are vans parked by the roadside waiting to take the defeated back to the start line. They mock you as you run. Yet you continue, one mile at a time, until you cross the finish line, and then they place a finisher’s medal over your head and tears come to your eyes and there is a feeling of accomplishment that flows over you that makes all the pain worth it, a feeling impossible to describe.

It is a strange truth. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. This is a basic truth about our human nature. That’s why so few people are rich. That’s why so few people do anything amazingly well. That’s why we shell out the big bucks to see our gods in concert. Who would pay to see Clapton if we all could play guitar like that? And we like to tell ourselves that the difference is talent, that somehow God bestowed upon Eric the necessary skills to play the guitar at birth. Somehow his skill has nothing to do with the hours and hours he spent playing, the hours he spent listening to other legends to see what he could learn from them. Oh no. His abilities have nothing to do with that.

We like that idea of talent. It lets us off the hook. That way, when we don’t develop the skills we want because we aren’t willing to invest the time in learning them, we can say that we just aren’t talented in that way. For some strange reason, we don’t like saying that we don’t want to work that hard at something. It makes us sound lazy. But it is okay to say you are as good as you want to be. It’s okay to be mediocre. It really is. Still, the old saying is true—no pain, no gain. You won’t really be good at anything if you aren’t willing to suffer a little, or a lot. Jesus understood that.

Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”

Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.

Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life. (John, Chapter 12)

You cannot grow unless you leave something behind. I can remember when I was a boy, playing with my toys with my best friend, Phil Graper. We were playing World War Two or something with our G.I. Joes and he said, “You know, someday we won’t want to play with our toys anymore.” I don’t know what prompted him to say that, but at the time, I thought he was nuts. We were having such a good time, I had been thinking that it just didn’t get any better than this. He was right, of course.

When I got married, I left behind my old life and many of my old friends. We still keep in touch of course, but it isn’t the same. Everything changed after I got married. And I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t trade my life for all the money in the world. You can’t move forward without leaving something behind. That’s just the way it is.

Jesus understood this too. He goes on to say, “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”

That’s why we’re here, to grow and become. We learn. We strive for something. Sometimes we don’t even know what it is we’re trying to become, but we’re trying to become something. We’re looking for something to complete us, to fill that hole and make us whole. If Jesus had stepped back from his fate, which the story about him indicated he could have done, he would have been just another religious nut, just another false prophet. But he didn’t. He died. And his death caused his name to be carried to every part of the world. He knew his message was for the world, not just the community of Jews in Judea. According to John, even some Greeks wanted to speak with him. Lord knows the Greeks had plenty of Gods of their own. They didn’t need another one.

Perhaps Jesus knew his death would spread his message of love and faith around the world. Perhaps the was the plan from the very beginning, or even before that. I don’t know. I don’t know much at all. But I do know that you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. And I also know that growth comes only with great struggle. And during the season of Lent, it’s good to remember that from time to time we need to stop what we’re doing and spend a little time trying to learn how to be the kind of people we want to be, and that can be painful. But hey—no pain, no gain.

Every sporting event you see on TV, somebody is always up there is that stands waving a sign that says “John 3-16” I always used to wonder what that meant, but was always too lazy to actually look up the verse in the bible. But one day, I did. And I found that the verse was that famous verse you hear all the time about God so loving the world that He gave His only begotten son, etc. I happen to think it’s a pretty verse. But people always take this verse out of context, and when you do that, you can pretty easily twist meanings around.

That particular verse comes at the end of a conversation that Jesus is having with one of the officials of the temple, a guy who was interested in Jesus, but didn’t want anybody to know. There are a lot of people who are interested in religion but don’t want anybody to know. There does seem to be a bit of a stigma about believing in something. Just try saying you believe in something around your friends and see what happens. And it doesn’t matter what you believe, either. They will think you’re nuts no matter what you believe in. I really don’t know why anybody would care what people believe as long as they don’t push those beliefs on you. Anyway, this official comes to Jesus in the middle of the night.

John, Chapter Three:

There was a man, one of the rabbis, by the name of Nicodemus, an official of the people of Judea. This man came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, I know you are a teacher sent by God, because you would not be able do these signs if you were not from God.”

Jesus answered, ”In truth, In truth, one is not able to perceive the Kingdom of God, unless one is born from above.”

This threw Nicodemus off a little. First of all, he comes at night. He doesn’t want anybody to know he has come to visit Jesus. Nicodemus is a closet disciple. He wants to understand Jesus. He’s already seen enough and heard enough to know that this Jesus guy in not your average itinerant prophet. Judea had seen her hundreds of those. Not one was the anointed deliverer for which they yearned. And he tells Jesus that he knows he is sent by God and Jesus replies that if a person hasn’t been “born of above”, he or she wouldn’t know the kingdom of God if it bit him or her on the ass.

Nicodemus replies, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter again into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Many people take that little remark of Jesus out of context and use it for biblical proof of reincarnation. There is some biblical evidence of reincarnation, but this isn’t it. Most translations put this verse as being “born again”. You sure as hell hear that phrase often enough. People talk about being “born again” Christians. But, in the original Greek, the phrase is “born of above”, not born again. The againess is implied. So this does not literally mean that you have to go through several lifetimes. It is clear that Nidodemus was not taking it to suggest reincarnation in any way. Jesus never talks about reincarnation one way or the other.

Jesus continued, “One who is not born in water and in wind cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

This word, spirit, is in the Greek, Pneuma, which means wind, breath, or a breeze. The idea of spirit is implied, but not stated. And in the original Greek, that word might have meant all three at the same time to the reader. “That born of the flesh, flesh is, and that born of the wind, is wind. Don’t be amazed that I say you must be born of above. The wind (pneuma, again) blows were it will. You hear it, but you don’t know where it comes and goes. So it is with everyone who is born of above.” Sometimes the translators choose to translate that word pneuma as wind and sometimes as spirit. Spirit is implied. It is interesting to note here that the Chinese Taoists, who spent thousands of years studying the human body and how it works, believe that the life force is contained in the chi, which also is translated as air, or currents of air, as is wind. Feng Shui is the study of how this “air” flows around living spaces and effects the ones living in those spaces. So Jesus says basically air currents and so do the ancient Chinese. Whaddya think? Is there are connection there, or what?

Nicodemus says, “How can this be?”

And Jesus replies, “You are a teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? In truth, we bear witness to you of what we know and have seen, but you don’t receive that witness. If I tell you earthly things and you don’t have faith, how can I tell you heavenly things?” This really makes a lot of sense. But this also means that Jesus must be considering the things he has told Nicodemus to be earthly things. He is, no doubt, talking about all the things he has said about how we shouldn’t worry, and God will take care of us, and how to be good to one another, those things he had been teaching the people, because talking about being born of the wind is not so terribly earthly, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Jesus continues, “Nobody can go up to heaven unless that one has come down from heaven, the son of man (in other words, a human). Just as Moses raised up a snake in the desert, it is necessary that the son of man also be raised up so that all who have faith have life eternal.”

And this is where Jesus says those immortal words that are flashed all over the place. “For thus God loves (agapao) the world (cosmos) for this reason, that son, the only begotten, He gives so that all who faithe (pisteo) in him not be lost but have life (zoe) forever. For God does not send (apostello) the son so the world (cosmos) is made separate, but to make the world (cosmos) whole through him. Those that faithe (pisteo) in him are not separated, but those who do not faithe (pisteo) are now separated, because they do not faithe (pisteo) in the name of the only begotten son of God.”

So what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus here is a big deal, but not because of the way we think of it. It is a big deal because Jesus tells Nicodemus that God loves THE WORLD, the cosmos, all of creation—NOT JUST ISRAEL. Up until this time, the people of Judea had considered God to be the God of Israel. They believed that they were the chosen people, the only ones God gave a shit about. Jesus uses that agapao-love word, the word that means unconditional love, and applies it to God’s feelings for all of creation.

Jesus also destroys right there the image of a judgmental, condemning God who punishes his creation for not being holy enough. Jesus points out that God does not condemn the world, but rather makes the world whole. In other words, God fixes a broken world. How does God fix a broken world? Through us, that’s how. You and I are the hands of God. And in every act of kindness, you worship and praise God, even if you didn’t know you were doing it. And as soon as you become one with love, as soon as you share your love, you become born of above, born of the wind. Because without that spirit, you would not be capable of love. Your love proves your connection to God.

The original Greek language also shows something that English cannot. We have a present tense, but the Greek’s have two. The aorist tense suggests instancy. And all those verbs about believing and being a part of the kingdom of God are in the aorist tense. This means that very instant in which you love, you are now and forever connected to God. And when was that? At birth? Before birth? I don’t know. But everyone who loves is a part of the God spirit. And when you share your love, you share that spirit.

The word Gospel means “Good news”. Well, if, as those bible-thumpin’ evangelist preachers, say, the message of Jesus was to repent of our evil ways or else God’s gonna dump us all into eternal sorrow and agony, that falls short to my way of thinking of what I would consider to be good news. I would more or less consider that to be really fucked up news. Jesus said to spread the good news, and the good news is that we are all a part of the divine spirit of love, that we are love, and that if we have faith in that idea and share love, we can be very happy. Jesus tells us that God is not our punisher, some kind of cosmic tyrant, but a loving parent, a creator. Look sometime at the love between a parent and child and tell me that love isn’t born from above, born of the wind. So spread the news; spread the love.