HAPPY EASTER - 2017!

The meaning of "resurrection" for me

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Sunday, April 16, 2017
HAPPY EASTER - 2017!

HAPPY EASTER!

4/16/2017

Hello, Everyone!

HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL!

My take on Easter is that it is a reminder that I will have another life after this current one is done. Easter represents not so much a "resurrection" of Jesus, but rather a "continuation" of Jesus. As Jesus lived, he is living now - simply continuing being himself; and I think that is the message I should take from the event of Easter. As it happened to Jesus, it will happen to me. I will "live again" after I die just as Jesus "lived again" after he died. That is what Easter means to me.

I have said it so many times before in my life and in my writings. I think there has never been anyone who has loved Jesus more than I have - and do; but the Jesus I see is not the Jesus that almost everyone I know sees. Most see Jesus as representing some later "Kingdom." I see Jesus as representing a present "triumph during life." I do not think that Jesus lived to sacrifice himself for me. I think Jesus lived to show us that living our values everyday is what life should be about, even in the face of the threat of death - not living to expect some great reward for having declared a belief in Jesus in this life.

I believe that Jesus lived to teach us that Heaven is "at hand" - not only in a future - but that if we ever intend to attain a real Heaven later, we must begin to live it now. If we live it now, then we can take it with us wherever we go; but if we do not live it now - and only expect it later - then we can never attain later what we have not known before hand; and that, for me, is what Easter is all about.

When people tell me that they are Christian - and then go forward to claim Jesus in name only - I want to suggest to them that they have missed the real life and idea of Jesus. Jesus taught kindness & forgiveness to all - even to those who might turn around and abruptly take his own life. To follow Jesus, then, means that I must do the same - not because I expect Jesus to praise me in some afterlife for having imitated him - but simply because it is the right thing to do - for my own soulful security. To strike at another man because he first struck me is to act "UnChristian." If I do strike another man because he first struck me, then all I have done is become that other man who dared to strike me. That is not Christian; and yet many who claim to be Christian apparently believe that it is just fine to destroy an enemy to keep that enemy at bay and from destroying them.

When Jesus lived, he lived knowing that he was going against the Jewish Law of the time; and that such law would have him stoned to death by fellow Jews if he dared to preach that salvation is not other oriented, but rather self oriented. The Jews taught that we are living to appease some outside entity they called Jehovah; and that failure to do so deserved death from stoning by fellow Jews. If Jesus had not lived in a Judaism that was not under another's rule - in his case, the Romans - in all likelihood, he would have been stoned to death by his fellow Jews for teaching that each person is worthy of him or herself and not beholden to some outside deity or church or nation that dared to proclaim that its laws must be obeyed. The Jesus I know would not have obeyed Jewish Law. The Jesus I know would have taught that Jewish Law gained nothing but adherence to some outside rule when life is not supposed to be lived in fear of self-worth, but in practice of it.

But the Jews were not in control at the time Jesus lived. So they could not stone anyone to death on their own. If they wanted someone executed, they had to ask for that execution by the ruling Romans - and were not justified to take their own law into their own hands. If it were not for the Romans being in control, I do believe that Jesus would have been stoned to death according to Jewish Law. As it happened, Jewish authority convinced the Roman overlords that Jesus had to be executed - for defiance of Jewish Law that commanded everyone to praise some outside entity called Jehovah. Since execution by the Romans was by crucifixion, that is how Jesus had to die - even though if it had been up to the Jews, it would have been by being stoned to death.

Importantly, however, the tale of Jesus is that he lived his principles - even in the face of execution by others for insisting on doing so. Again, Jesus did not "sacrifice" himself as some rebel Jews would have us believe. He simply insisted on a thing called integrity - which means you act unconditionally according to principle and do not "adjust" your principles when faced with threat by another.

So that is what Jesus means to me. That is not to say that if faced with some outside threat to my own security that I will not surrender and agree to take up arms against a perceived enemy; but it is to say that ideally I know I should not surrender my principles; but at least I have those principles and believe in them like I think anyone who claims to be  "Christian" should.

Importantly, though, Easter for me represents my having to live again later just like Jesus lived again. Like it was for Jesus, it is and will be for me. Life will continue; and it is up to me as to how that life will continue - in this incarnation or any to follow it.

Or so, I Believe!

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!

Francis William Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
www.una-bella-vita.com