Holy Saturday Reflections

The Lord lies hidden from the world.  God is dead.  We have killed Him.

Why was Christ crucified?  I know you know the answer.  Christ was crucified because of our sins.  He died because we sinned.  But this interpretation is made by those who are believers; those who are followers in Jesus Christ.  What about those who do not believe?  Well, based on the testimony we have, for the Jews, the Lord made himself out to be God.  For the Romans, Christ came too close for comfort.  He made himself out to be a King, in competition with Caesar. 

In other words, the Lord was too religious and too political.

Isn’t this the same argument made against Christianity today?  Isn’t the Church considered too “political” and even too “religious” today?  Well, it could very well be if you are a self-serving politician or a non-practicing Christian.

I know.   You don’t have to tell me.  I know the problems of the Church are many.  I know they have a billion problems, but what most people don’t know is why?  It’s because they have over a billion members.  And each of them bring with them to Church their multiple problems. 

But though the Church may be filled every Sunday with sinners, and the worst of the worst, it is also full of Saints and God.  And those who do not go to Church because they say it is full of “hypocrites” must not see straight due to the plank in their eye. 

Although we will never say it, we truly believe we are "the center of the Universe."  But in all honesty, we are simply at one end (either end) of the teeter-totter.  Christ is in the middle.  The Church is in the middle.  This is what I realized long ago in my own life.  I thought I was balanced.  But I soon realized that I was not.  Most people have not yet made this discovery in their life. 

What made me realize this?  Reading the books of secularists and/or atheists.  Who helped me to put it all together?  A convert by the name G.K. Chesterton. 

Too pessimistic or too optimistic.    In his book “Orthodoxy”, G.K. Chesterton noticed certain tendencies in atheistic thought.  He noticed how some authors would claim the Church was too pessimistic; that is, always speaking or writing about hell, judgment, sins, dying to oneself, abnegation, suffering, etc… Chesterton immediately agreed with them, but then he noticed how other atheists thought the Church was too optimistic; that is, far too forgiving of others especially of criminals, insisting on eternal life, heaven, re-birth, love, mercy, joy and happiness during trials and tribulations, etc…  Well, that completely confused him until he discovered that the problem was not with the Church but with these authors.  They were either too pessimistic or too optimistic!  It was the Church that was balanced.

Too squeamish or too warish.  I remember how one atheist wrote that Christianity was responsible for the destruction of the Roman Empire.  How come?  Because they turned warriors into wimps!  All this talk about “loving your enemy” and “doing good to those who hate you” and “forgiving seven times seventy times”, had turned a strong Empire into a marshmallow.  I agreed.  But like Chesterton, as soon as I agreed, I had to disagree.  Because the very next author claimed that the Catholic Church was responsible for all wars!  What???  No way!  Now, it turned out that the Church was responsible for so much fighting and bloodshed…of too much testosterone!  Again, I was completely confused until I discovered that the authors were either wimps or warmongers.  The Church it turned out was completely balanced when it came to war and peace.

Well, it became clear to me that “any stick was good enough to beat up the Church with” (G.K. Chesterton).

Christ was beat up with sticks and for no good reason.  We made Him out to be a lunatic when in reality we were the lunatics.  We thought of him as a liar as we were coming up with our own lies.  We made Him a threat so as to go to war with Him.  We knew He was the King and the Lord when we continued to pretend that we were a king and a lord.

From what I have read, it is clear the World does not know Christ because it does not know Love and therefore how to love. We killed Him because we wished to appease our constituents.  We know how to be kind.  We don’t know how to love.  We don’t know Love.