Lent…one

Today, this column of mine was published in our local paper. In case you are unaware, today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent on the Christian calendar.

As I write these words, we are entering the Lenten season, leading up to Good Friday and then Easter. There is no doubt that our culture – whether Christian or not – enjoys Easter much more than Lent. Easter is all coloured eggs, bright and uplifting music, and flowers. For some Christians, it is a time of giddy joyousness, spring sales, and a renunciation of anything sad or mournful. Some congregations celebrate Easter with a congregational Easter egg hunt – about as far from an empty tomb, and the Christian story of the Easter drama as one can get!

Palm Sunday and the reading of the story of Jesus’ arrest by Roman soldiers, and betrayal and denial by his own people, is indeed a dark story. It is a story many feel is best passed over in silence, opting for the “Yippee!” of a shallow Easter celebration.

Many Christians believe that the whole scenario was planned by God so that some price God needed paid to himself could be repaid in Jesus’ death. However, I find it intriguing that in this story about the situation of Jesus’ followers during that time when he was hunted, and later (after the experience of resurrection), that they were hunted as criminals by the Emperor.

Jesus and later, his friends, were hunted because they were a threat to the power structures of the day! Those power structures in ancient times were called Caesar, the Sanhedrin, or less accurately “The Romans” and “The Jews.” But it was “Power” that feared Jesus and his message, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Throughout history, “Power” and “Authority” has frequently hunted down ‘freedom’ and ‘love’, in an attempt to eliminate them.

Imagine the Christian community being a threat to the same powers in our culture! Our Churches are left in peace, they are well cared for, and everyone expects them to produce citizens who are ‘nice people;’ friendly, compassionate… and peaceable. But threatening? Never! Contemporary Christians tend to bow before “Power”, to embrace its feet, or seek its benefits, to become its allies.

Unless of course, those people have listened to the Jesus’ stories more carefully, or read their Bibles more frequently and more closely. Unless they held the images of God’s Kingdom (as Jesus spoke about it), up against the daily life and practices of those we call “Power” these days. That could be City Hall… the Government … the Company… the Institution….Then we might begin to see discrepancies that might make Christians a threat to Power once again!

It’s easy to see the cracks and faults in the practice of “Power” in other places, other countries. We do, and we regularly criticize them for it. It is much more difficult and dangerous to see cracks and faults close to home. For example, our “Powers” always speak in capital letters about the importance of the Economy (which usually benefits those who are already feeding well at the trough), while at the same time, makes it more difficult for those at the bottom, or those just beginning (like students) to get a place at the communal table.

“Power” in Canada is fond of trumpeting about how free we are, and how changes are always being made to make us freer. At the same time, our elected representatives are silenced if they wish to raise embarrassing questions, or unpopular topics. Those who are forced by circumstance to use Employment Insurance to pay the rent may find themselves grilled and investigated as potential criminals, by agents of “Power”, and far fewer of them are found “eligible” than previously.

“Power” in our land repeatedly warns us about the rising tide of crime, and the need to build more and bigger prisons, even while statistics reveal that the crime rate in Canada is actually declining year by year. One wonders who will obtain the lucrative contracts to build these prisons. They would certainly be people who offer no threat to “Power!”

Now, you may have long since decided that my musings here have nothing to do with Lent, or Easter, or with Jesus and his message. But it is interesting that when He lived and spoke, Jesus made “Power” quake and rage and hunt him down to shut him up. For some centuries after his crucifixion (and his resurrection, Christians assert) their designation as “Followers of the Way” made them part of an outlawed religion. Its followers were subject to death if arrested. Only then could “Power” relax. Instead, of course, they embraced the “Followers of the Way” and helped them become Church…”THE Church.” Then everybody wanted to belong. And “Power” was threatened no more, because “Power” had encouraged the Followers of the Way to become harmless “Christians”.

I wonder…what words of Jesus “Good News” proclamation would threaten “Power” today? What would “Power” do in 2015 to those who actually became “Follower of the Way,” and acted on the words that Jesus shared with them? I wonder….