Good News, God's Kingdom, and Music

Just sharing a reflection from my journal about Good News, God's Kingdom, and music. 

I love this word picture I read to describe the Good News.  

"Jesus forms a movement of people who trust him and believe his message.  They believe that they don't have to wait for this or that to happen, but rather they can begin living in a new and better way now....life for them is about an interactive relationship - reconciled to God and to one another - so they see their entire lives as an opportunity to make the beautiful music of God's kingdom so that more and more people will be drawn into it and so the world will be changed by their growing influence."

This is what my spirit yearns for. This is Good News!  Reconciled to God and to others.  Living a new and better way now.  And I love the phrase "They see their entire lives as an opportunity to make the beautiful music of God's Kingdom."

How cool to think of it as beautiful music!  I'm always so intrigued when I consider a person creating a song - creating a new arrangement of musical notes and lyrics.  How beautiful!  How impossible!  Haven't all possible arrangements of musical notes been put together by now? No! It's seemingly endless.  Even when someone does a cover of a song, they can rearrange, add, or spin it to be new.  

God is endless creativity - just like music.  There is no limit to the creative expression we can tap into when we are reconciled with THE Creator!  We can "make the beautiful music of God's Kingdom" and it can be fresh and new every single day.  It can never be stagnant.  

We can enjoy music that has been made and has been passed down and has endured.  We can create new music.  We can certainly be drawn to different expressions, styles and forms of music.  Just like my husband feels his spirit lift while he's by the ocean and mine when I'm on a trail surrounded by trees.  Some will find their spirit lift when music is lyrically pointing them to truth about God.  Some will feel a deep stirring when the poetry in the music leads them to contemplation.  Some enjoy the simple chords and lyrics that invite ease to sing along.  Some enjoy the unpredictable, almost free flowing, unscripted, unchartered route of a guitar riff that you can get lost in and it seems to have no beginning or end.  

For me, music speaks to a part of my soul that nothing else seems to penetrate.  It transcends my typical pathway of assimilating information.  It opens up a new pathway - beyond the cerebral, cognitive, logical, thinking part of my being - reaching deeper, further, wider.  It bypasses the well traveled route I rely on to assess information.  It goes to my spirit.  

So, I really love that he used this analogy - we can "make the beautiful music of God's Kingdom".

It's overwhelming! It's creative beauty that is endless and beyond words, reasoning and logic.  
Yet, I also know that when people study music, it actually integrates mathematics and unwavering rules of the design of the universe.  

Isn't that just a picture of God? Endlessly creative, yet somehow woven in to a particular structure that is set and enduring and even predictable.  

It's a paradox.  I love it! Truth always seems to involve paradox.  It stretches me.  Is music boundless, creative and ever evolving, or is it somehow restricted to unchanging rules of mathematics?  YES!  BOTH! 

So intriguing.  So beautiful.  So mysterious.  My appetite is insatiable - for new music - and for seeing God in new ways.  

Poems

 April is National Poetry Month. 

A while back, I was reading a book about poetry and I realized that actually attempting poetry is super vulnerable for me. It goes to such depths.  It's emotion on paper.  It's admitting the depths of awareness, feeling, emotion, uncertainty, confusion, delight.  Trying to express the transcendent.  And, if you don't know me well, you might not know that I prefer thinking to feeling.  Poetry exposes my feely side and I'm just learning to be OK with that part of myself. Plus I have no idea how to write poems.  

But, what the heck.  I have jotted down a few poems in my journal over some years and thought - why not share them here?

---------------------------------------------
Round and round we go

Where is the clock?

Nobody knows.

Stop!  Did you hear that?
A snowflake just fell.

Through the tick and the tock,

I could hardly tell.

Another.  Another. 

Does white carry sound?

Perfect stillness rests

I hear it clanging all around

The morning has broken

The morning in mine

The tick tock, the stillness

The gift of time.

It's there.  Or is it?

It surrounds us, and yet...

With tight fists I grab hold, 

And with open hands I get. 

Stop.  Go.  Stop.  Go...

In motion tremors thrill

but in the ring stands fighting

the desire to be still.

Who will be the victor?
Who takes home the prize?

Can you measure these opponents?

Will they score based on their size?

Run.  Accomplish.  Fight.  Win.

Then worthy you will be.

But stop, reflect, surrender, lose

And victory you might see.  

--------------------------------------------------

Too much pain

Disconnect

See the smile

Shut down the heart

Too much pain

The dagger is a threat

I can't let it puncture

Shift, dodge, scroll, move

Keep moving

The blade finds willing flesh

Their words ooze from the wounds

But not me

Keep them all inside

They are my oxygen

My lungs swell

Exhale

Controlled, alive, protected

---------------------------------------------

Woosh.  Woosh.

A friendly dragon breathes in the morning sun.

The breeze carries it away.

Woosh.  Woosh.

My heart lifts!  

I know this.

I remember this!

It is colors.

Rising on a breeze.

Saying yes to the trees...and then no

Lifting with each exhale

But I lift with each inhale

We're breathing together

------------------------------------------------------

Colors

Sounds

Creamy blue palette

Green rustling and swaying

How can I hear a breeze?

Only as it catches what impedes it's path.

How can it be so beautiful?

It's invisible.

Yet, my breath catches in my throat.

Branches sway and leaves dance. 

-------------------------------------------------------

A lifetime of training

Lean in, not away.

Open arms for an embrace

Answer yes, it's OK.

What are you protecting?
Why is it so hard?
Others make it look so easy.

Let down your guard.

Not sure when it happened.

But training works that way.

I think I'm one of them now

there's nothing I need to say.

Stop

Recoil

Don't

Not safe!

There's an enemy among us

we must not make mistakes.

That person isn't the enemy

Defeat is in the space between us

Resist the desire for closeness

Retreat to self protection is a must

Stranger on the street

Move away and nod discreetly

Hold your breath and speculate

Wish the categories lined up neatly.

Us and them

Nothing makes sense

Do I make exceptions

in my line of defense?

Can I?  Should I/

Who do I ask?

Knowing right and wrong

Has become and impossible task.

What felt like selfless and loving

has become a selfish act.

Do you want to be part of the problem?

All invitations you must retract.

It won't always be this way

Don't let it harden your heart

Grieve the temporary loss

And let perfect love do it's part.

There's no condemnation in love

No judgement, no keeping score

No fear, no worry, no envy, no pride

And when it runs out, there is more!

My Dad

It's been 4 months since we lost my Dad.

We had the opportunity to get up and share at the funeral home during the visitation for my Dad.

I jotted down some notes.  Here are a few things I talked about.

We joke about how he walks. One arm swinging.  Leaning forward.  I remember my Mom saying I could always keep up with him - even as a little kid with my short legs.  
Sometimes Timm says "pump the brakes Harold" to me when my pace is high speed.

Not sure who remembers when he had to try the skateboard in Florida and wiped out.  Sometimes when I'm moving faster than is safe, or I try something I probably shouldn't, Timm might say "easy Harold".

When I injured my pinky finger playing basketball and I just wanted to go home, but Timm insisted I go to the emergency room. Now I have a bent pinky, just like my Dad.  And when I had torn a muscle pretty bad - that time he didn't even have to say it - I know Timm was thinking "you're just like your Dad."

He might be poking fun - but I love to hear someone say I'm just like my Dad.

I hope so

I posted a picture of him on Facebook saying I'll miss his smile and several people commented that they see his smile in mine.

I hope so.

I hope I can carry on his spirit.

Over and over as I made call this weekend, or sent texts, I would get the same response "Oh No! Not Harold.  He was so happy and friendly and helpful and kind."  Most people added  - "and I just talked to him!"

He wasn't always a patient man.  I put him over the edge more than a few times when I was a sassy, spunky, energetic kid.  Sometimes I think I slowed him down with all of my questions and "yah but's".  But as he aged, he grew more and more patient.

With my kids and all of the grandkids, he welcomed them into whatever he was doing.  My girls loved to go out and pick sugar snap peas or cucumbers.  He would let them do it themselves while he carried a basket, and they felt treasured.  

I see the kids next door.  How he invited them in to learn about farming and gardening.

In Florida, any time I talked to him he would be doing something for the condo or for someone else.  Always asking everyone how they're doing...and then listening.  And then offering help.  Or inviting someone else to help him.  I hear he has an apprentice recently doing some of the plants with him.  Now he has someone who can step in and take some of it over.

That's pretty much what I shared at the funeral home.  But, I'd add:

Our motto in our home is "Live 360".  It's our mission to try our best to always have 360 vision - looking all around and asking God to give us his eyes to see people.  And not just to see people, but to love and care for them.  

And I'm not sure if I ever fully realized that's how Dad lived.

He didn't go out and find kids in need and create a program where the kids would come and work in his fields.  No, he saw the neighbor kids and he invited them.  It can be that simple. 

He didn't go looking to volunteer with big brothers, but I heard several of my brother's friends say that my Dad was a father figure to them and they learned so much by being around him.  They said they always felt welcome and treated like family. 

He didn't need to arrange elaborate programs at his condo, he just saw every person and learned their name and their story.  They all knew he was interested in them.  He cared about the grounds and worked to improve the landscaping.  He watered plants, replaced some that needed it, and talked with the hired crews to ensure the work was done well. 

He wasn't a hospice volunteer on a team, but when his sister was dying, he talked with her every day and was there to love and serve her - and then to take care of everything when she passed.  

His neighbor in Michigan shared that not only was my Dad the best neighbor, but also the best man he'd ever met.  

All of the grandkids shared the he made each feel like his favorite - and was always interested in their lives.  He supported them in whatever they did, even if he didn't fully understand it. 

He was available to everyone who crossed his path. He lived 360.

Why pray?

I woke up yesterday feeling the best I have since this whole Coronavirus life change started.
Why?
Probably a combination of things.
Maybe I was just lucky to land in the "acceptance" stage of grief for a day.
But, I also think it was interesting that I woke up the night before and couldn't fall back to sleep.  I wouldn't say I was feeling anxious, just awake.
I did have thoughts springing into my mind.  I considered just getting up for the day, but I checked my phone and it was only 2:15am.
Nope.  Not getting up.
But I thought it might be helpful to just write things on my task list on my phone as I thought of things so I could get them out of my head.
So that's what I did.
If I thought of something, I would jot it down.
Then I laid there and prayed. 
I prayed for people and situations and people groups.
Then I recited the Lord's prayer repeatedly. 
Eventually, I fell asleep.
So, when I woke up the next morning  I felt rested and....motivated.
Weird.
I have been feeling so low and overwhelmed and just foggy.  It was noticeable to me that I felt more clear-headed.
I grabbed coffee and started my daily morning time of reading, praying, listening, and writing.
First I read something in a daily email meditation about how Jesus said "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" and the reflections said "If our soul is at rest in the comforting sweetness and softness of God, we can bear the hardness of life."
That felt so comforting to read.
I thought about how I had been up the night before, but never felt anxious about it.  I prayed, I surrendered, then I prayed some more.
Next I moved on to read Luke 22 and saw the familiar story of Jesus praying, then returning to his disciples and finding them asleep.  He said "Why are you sleeping?  Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."
I found it interesting that he didn't say "get up and pray for me" or "pray for things to turn out the way you want".
No, he says to pray SO THAT you won't fall into temptation. 
Interesting.
Because the night before as I prayed the Lord's prayer, I had stopped after saying "lead us not into temptation..." and I wondered "really? do I need to pray that?  To not be led into temptation?  Temptation of what?"
So this wording really stood out to me.
Since it was interesting to me, I reread that part of the scripture and noticed something else I had never noticed before.
Before Jesus asks "Why are you sleeping?" it says "When he rose from prayer and went back to his disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow."
Hmmmmm.
Exhausted. 
From sorrow. 
They weren't just being lazy, undisciplined, or careless like I've always perceived.
They were exhausted from sorrow.
And in that sorrow, Jesus knew they could be tempted.
So he asks them to pray.
I can relate.
I have experienced exhaustion from sorrow lately.
And in that exhaustion, I'm tempted to feel like nothing I do matters.
That's my temptation.
And, it was as if Jesus said to me at 2am "Why are you sleeping?  Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."
It's a temptation for me to completely give up...to believe lies that there's nothing I can do...this is too big for me to even make a single ripple of a difference...why not just shut down...what do I possibly have to offer at this time?
But, in the night, ideas were coming to me.  It was as if my motivation showed back up.  I jotted down my ideas.  Nothing earth shattering or seemingly world changing, but ideas.  motivation.  It's what I had been lacking.
Then I woke up with a clear head.  Can't explain it.  But the fog had lifted a little. 
The temptation to believe I'm hopeless, helpless, not creative, and frankly not caring, had lifted.
I do care.
Deeply.
It's OK for me to feel sorrow.  It's OK for me to feel exhaustion.  It's OK for me to feel whatever I feel!
But, I believe there is an enemy who wants to find me when I'm down and tempt me to stay there and to experience hopelessness.
Nope.
I can pray. 
Why?
I can be reminded of my identity in Christ.
I can find my grounding.  My center.  My unchanging truth.
I can find wholeness even in my sorrow. 
And it is out of that wholeness that I can be who I was created to be. 

Truth in a whisper

I'm so grateful for a daily meditation I've been receiving via email.
A few of the quotes from today that hit me:
"God is eternal.  The human mind is finite.  If God could be comprehended, surrounded by a concept, this would make us greater than God"
and
"Alongside all our knowing must be the equal and honest 'knowing that I do not know'"
These are such freeing statements to my mind and heart.
It's so freeing for me to have well educated, well read, faithful, thoughtful, loving, curious people express what I'm already thinking.  It feels validating.
I've always found it perplexing how people can make statement about God or their worldview with such simplicity or such certainty.  For a while, I thought my goal was to read my bible and seek God and pray so that I, too, would have a rock solid certainty about who God is.  As if my ultimate hope was to finally get God inside of a box that I could easily explain to others- so that they could have God in a box too.
It's really strange to consider that would ever be a big enough hope.
Because, for me, as soon as I would get God inside my box, I would find myself a little disappointed and unsure.  It always bothered me that I was even encouraged to "share my faith" because I equated that with "put God into words and try to convey in spoken and written word all that God is".  And I would feel deep down in my spirit that if I could explain God with my limited intellect and vocabulary (in my one and only understood language) then God isn't very impressive after all.
To me, it makes so much more sense and gives me so much more hope and freedom to acknowledge and state that God is paradox, mystery, unknowing, just beyond my reach, just beyond my words, just beyond my explanation.  God is something I experience, feel and know in a part of myself that isn't language and reason.
Does that mean I can't share my faith?
No.
I still want to share this incredible hope and freedom and love with the world.  I want everyone to experience the love, grace, mercy and freedom that I believe is the hope of the world!  Of course I do.
But it actually makes me a little sick feeling to dumb that down to one bible verse or one cliche statement, or one certain idea that is meant to convey all that God is.
Especially something so weird like "God sent Jesus and you have to believe he's the only way to heaven or you'll be tortured for eternity."
What the?
That's it?
That's God?
That's his big idea for us summed up in one statement?
Where's the beauty?  The love?  The mystery? The hope?  The freedom? The complexity?
How did that one idea become worthy of sharing, while essentially leaving everything else out as less relevant?  Blows my mind.
I remember growing up, surrounded by many who had faith.  I appreciate that I felt safe, that I had a deep sense of belonging, and that I felt "in".  Of course, it breaks my heart that I honestly assumed anyone who was involved in a different church or religion was misled and it was probably a cult, because our church was "right" so everyone else had to be "wrong".  It's the only way my faith could be strong.  I had to dig in my heels and be certain we were right.  So I had to exclude others.
But, of all that I learned and witnessed and heard, I can only remember one thing that triggered a sense of wonder and curiosity and hope.
It was when my Aunt Karin, my Godmother, would say to me "Jesus loves you."
And she took many opportunities to make sure I heard that.  She wrote it in my birthday cards, whispered it in my ear when she hugged me, looked me in the eye and said it when I was overwhelmed.
I attended Catholic school for 8 years of my formative childhood, I went to mass at least once a week, usually 2-3 times a week during the school year.  So I must have learned a lot.  I said the rosary with my Grandma frequently, did the stations of the cross during lent, made all of my sacraments, took holy Communion, made my confession every few months, and said my memorized prayers every day.
But the only thing I remember is "Jesus loves you" being whispered in my ear and something deep inside me wanting to believe that was true.
I don't have any memory of any other things I did, said, or thought bringing me to that feeling of hope.  My deep desire to believe I was loved.  That I was worthy of Jesus' love.  That I was connected somehow to the mysterious God through a love relationship that I did nothing to earn or deserve.
All of that yearning and hope was communicated to me somehow in that simple statement "Jesus loves you".
I could not have comprehended most of the thoughtful explanations I now enjoy reading about faith, grace, theology, and church history.
Yet, truth seems to find it's way to a soul that is searching.
And, for me, even as a child, my soul was searching for that truth.  And my Aunt Karin, who lived a life of obedience to her Jesus, wanted to share that truth with me.
Man, we over complicate things.  It's so weird.  Of course God is beyond our comprehension.  Of course we can't fully know God.
But we can seek truth.
And we can share hope and love.
And, if we believe it's true, we can simply whisper to someone "Jesus loves you."

Christians and rotten fruit

OK, it just ticks me off.
How can anyone throw around bible verses randomly and use them as an "argument" for how we are supposed to "live biblically"?
I get it, the bible is helpful for teaching, rebuking, training...I get it.
Helpful.
But here I am in Ephesians reading about how Husbands and Wives "should" love each other and how children "should" honor parents, and next think I know Paul is saying how slaves "should" obey, respect and fear their masters!  As they would Christ!?!?! COME ON!
Sure, he continues with beautiful sentiment about being a slave to Christ and showing that kind of love and being rewarded for that.  And he continues with the directive for Masters to treat slaves the same.
The point is, I just can not believe people pull out a bible verse and act like it's equal in authority, relevance or importance to any other verse just because maybe it says something that confirms or defends their position on something.
Or, out of sheer ignorance?  They really think every single word is a directive that is equal to every other.
Absurd.
Paul was addressing a community where slavery WAS happening.  There wasn't even a discussion on the table about slavery NOT happening.  So, he addresses what IS happening and suggests order, love, and respect within the existing circumstances.
But if someone pulls out the verse "slaves obey your earthly masters with respect, and fear and with sincerity of heart", they could use it to defend a position that God condones slavery.
UGH!
Absurd!
When Jesus gives the sermon on the mount he says "'by their fruit you shall know them"...and when asked about ALL Of the laws, he says they can be summed up in "Love God, love others."
So, when discussing a "biblical view" of something, grabbing a random verse to argue about a current issue, when that verse was written to a different culture at a different time, with different circumstances  I would hold it loosely.  Because, Jesus, who we worship, follow and believe, summed up the law!  So, yes, His words ARE more important and hold more weight.
We look at slavery and ask, does it produce good fruit?  Is it loving?
NO!
OK, then perhaps it is not something that should be supported and practiced in the kingdom of God....by those who proclaim to be in the kingdom.
Of course, this fires me up, not so much because I experience modern-day people trying to defend slavery using bible verses.  But I do see many Christians pulling out bible verses and using them to defend their actions of judgement, condemnation, cruelty, and discrimination towards LGBTQ people.  Yet, I would argue that if you look at the random verses being yanked out of context, they are not referring to a loving, monogamous, committed, same-sex relationship.  The references were about lust, sex, violence, oppression, rape, orgies, prostitution.  There aren't references to respectful, mutually condoning, loving, physical relationships between same sex partners.  So, to yank out a verse that's referring rape, violence and orgies and to compare it to our modern culture of same sex couples who are desiring a respectful, loving, monogamous, life-long covenant of a shared life where they honor each other with love?  Wth?  Then the verse is not addressing their "behavior".
Let's look at the fruit!
The fruit of a loving, committed couple sharing self-sacrificial love with each other....submitted to Jesus, loving others, being on mission for the Kingdom....
Compared to....
The fruit of Christians demanding that they NOT love each other but instead try to change...or try to live a life alone and never marry...or repent and feel disgusted by who they are and view themselves as repulsive, sinful, deviant.  OH!  And they definitely can't serve in the church if they're in a loving, committed, mutually respectful same-sex marriage or relationship.  Their kingdom impact is not allowed in the church.
SO, they leave the church.
What kind of fruit is that?  ROTTEN FRUIT.
Meanwhile, where does that leave the church?
The church is chowing down on the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and seeing that as their place.  Yet, God said to stay away from that tree - or we're just trying to play God's role.  We're supposed to eat from the tree of life!  And we're supposed to share the fruit from the tree of live with everyone in the world!  And that fruit is SO GOOD...too good to be true.
But, we're too afraid of that freedom.  We don't trust it.  So, we get lured into the role of moral police.  That was never our place.
Love God.
Love Others.
Good Fruit.
When any person is driven AWAY from Jesus and His church and is made to feel unworthy or unwelcome, that is rotten fruit.
And it STINKS!
Do we not trust Jesus?  When someone meets Jesus, loves Jesus, surrenders to Jesus as Lord...do we not trust Jesus to deal with the stuff in their life that is falling short or missing the mark?
I really don't want the job of judging each person.  I don't.  How can I LOVE them when I'm so focused on assessing their moral worthiness?
But, it is a beautiful thing to witness good fruit.  When something is producing an overflow of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness...when something looks so much like Jesus it's compelling!  If that good fruit is flowing from a couple who is the same sex, I'm OK leaving that detail up to Jesus.  I can celebrate the fruit.  Being the sex police is exhausting.  Their relationship is NOT all about SEX! And I don't personally believe most bible verses about homosexual sex are referring to this kind of fruitful, loving relationship.  Most are referring to gang rape, oppression, violence, forcing sex on children, orgies, and prostitution.
There was not a cultural reference to what is in our current culture.
Just like in Ephesians when Paul addresses slaves and masters.  He didn't have any reference for a culture that did NOT have slaves.  In bible verses, there wasn't an available reference for same-sex covenant love relationships.  Only deviant ones.
When I watched the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, my heart broke for Freddy Mercury.  He longed for a loving relationship.  He tried to pursue one with a woman he loved.  But, when he acknowledged his attraction was to men, his only option was the underground, hidden, dark world of sexual deviants.  He wasn't allowed to pursue the kind of loving relationship he was desiring.  It was forbidden.
He finally did find it.  He found love.  And I would imagine it was incredibly difficult to reveal their love relationship to family, friends, and the world who knew him because he was so famous.  But, they did it anyways.  And, that man was the partner who loved Freddy through the rest of his days and to his dying day.  THAT was what Freddy wanted.  He didn't WANT promiscuous, underground, kinky, forbidden sex.  That's just the only thing that seemed available to him because of who he was attracted to.  He wanted LOVE!  He wanted to share his LIFE with someone - loving and serving each other.
And that LOVE looks like good fruit to me.
Much better fruit than loneliness, self hatred, solitude, and feeling unworthy.  Or the fruit of hidden, shameful, forbidden sex that no one can know about.  That's horrible.  To give a person no other option but to deny them LOVE.
OK.  Enough.  That's my rant for today.

Did God Kill Jesus? I don't think so.

Great time to be thinking about Easter, huh?
I know most people are feeling the excitement of Fall in the air, and even dreaming about the upcoming celebrations of Thanksgiving and maybe even Christmas.
But, for some reason, I am day dreaming about Easter.
Easter is my favorite.  It's the most meaningful time of year to me.
As a follower of Jesus, Easter is downright crazy.
I mean, it's one thing to believe in the whole Christmas story and about Jesus being born to a virgin and being the incarnation, human form of the God of the universe.  Yah, that's weird.
But, Easter? 
To believe that Jesus died and then after a couple of days he rose from the dead and was physically alive again, but he kinda looked different because some people close to him didn't even recognize him?  And then to believe that event has profound meaning to my life right now, 2000 years later?  That is beyond weird.  That's crazy.
But, that's what Christians believe!  That's what I believe!
And it is so weird and supernatural and mystical.
And, although I'm not planning to spend time defending why I would believe such a crazy thing actually happened, I do believe there is sufficient evidence that it did.
Anyways, for so many years of my life I've heard the explanation of Jesus' death framed as him being a sacrificial lamb, dying in my place, because God needs a blood sacrifice to atone for sins.  So, Jesus steps in and is that sacrifice for me. 
But, that inevitably leads me to view God as a bloodthirsty, vengeful entity.  And, it leads me to view myself as a sinful being unworthy of God's love but lucky because Jesus was worthy.
So, I'm left with a really crummy impression of God's character and my own.
But, in recent years, I've heard the death and resurrection of Jesus described differently.  And I'm left with a beautiful, flawless, perfect, all-loving impression of the triune God.  And I'm left feeling worthy, loved, victorious, fearless, and filled with hope and purpose.
Hmmmm
But because I've heard the substitutionary atonement theory repeatedly for over 40 years, I sometimes struggle to articulate what I REALLY  believe the resurrection is all about.
Victory over evil.
Victory over death.
A model of dying and rising - which is a continual part of my faith journey.  Die to self, rise up into the version of me that God created.  Continually.
From Cynthia Bourgeault's reflections: "Christianity has tended to view the resurrection as Jesus' triumph over physical death...but...it's meaning lies in something far deeper than merely the resurrection of a corpse.  Jesus' real purpose in this sacrifice was to wager his own life against his core conviction that love is stronger than death, and that laying down self, which is the essence of this love, leads not to death, but to life..."
She goes on about how this gives us an archetype for all of our personal experiences of dying and rising "reminding us that it is not only possible but imperative to fall through fear, into love because that is the only way we will ever truly know what it means to be alive".
This is SO MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL, helpful, inspiring, transformative and encouraging to contemplate than the idea of my being awful and unworthy of love until Jesus is brutally murdered in my place.
I don't believe I am unworthy or that I was unworthy.  Sure, I'm a sinner.  Because I am human and have to continually die to self and seek to be reborn as God's creation.  Always allowing His spirit to refine me, regenerate me, remind me.  His spirit reminds me that I was created by Him and he cherishes that creation.  He didn't create me as an unworthy sinner who he couldn't bear to look at because I'm too disgusting for His pure eyes - so he needed a mutilated Jesus to step between us so he could bear looking directly at my awful self.
What the?
That's crazy!
So, today I'm thinking about the end of my favorite season and the coming of the cooler months. 
And I'm thinking about Easter and the resurrection and the life of Jesus. 
I'm thinking about the infinite beauty of the love of God and the stark contrast between that light and the darkness that is sin and evil.
I truly do realize how weird it is to believe these things actually happened. And it's weird to believe these events continue to have profound affect on humanity in this present moment 2000 years later.
I could say so much more. 
Jesus was the ultimate scapegoat.  In perfect love, he took all of the hate, blame, rage, fear, and accusations...and he accepted it all with grace and mercy and forgiveness.  He let humanity pile all of our disgusting sins on him and He carried that weight to his death. His murder.  He then had victory over death and showed that all of that sin does not win. 
In the ultimate display of victory, he demonstrated that love wins.
God didn't kill Jesus to quench his thirst for a blood sacrifice.  We killed Jesus. Evil killed Jesus.  And we piled all of our sin on Him.  And he took it all.  And he showed us that evil doesn't win. It can't win.  Because God is love and love is all powerful. 
I love Easter.