What I was trying to say before...

Well, Jonathan did a much better job than me. (Talking about my last post.) Here's the video...

April 15 :: Bewitched and Bewildered - Jonathan Walker from Church on the Rock Homer on Vimeo.

Easter and my issues...

I process things by putting them on paper. Sometimes I skip the words and just grab my acrylics, but just about everything I encounter I’m wondering in the back of my head how to map it out in some way on paper. I have something I’ve been wanting to write about this week, but I’ve been a little hesitant. I feel like this one I shouldn’t write about because I could come across as being very critical and I don’t want to do that. On the other hand though, it is a real struggle for me and maybe it is for someone else too. There might, possibly be some sort of value in sending it out there. I have gone back and forth. In the end, I think I want to write it. I want to be clear and careful though. I am not writing from the stand point of moral superiority, I have tried to search out the cause of my struggle and hope that I am able to successfully communicate that I am not bitter or resentful, I am not anti-tradition, I am not prideful about this. And, in fact, I am a little embarrassed to admit it to you all. Just try to keep that in mind. 

I guess I should just say it and then explain -  I dread Easter Sunday.

There it is. What is considered the “holiest” Sunday of the year is my biggest struggle in a year of Sundays. I guess the reason this all came out it is that I thought I might actually miss it this year.  Scott is out of town and I originally thought his flight back to Anchorage was getting in at 1:00am on Sunday which would mean driving very late Saturday and then sleeping Sunday morning. I just double checked the itinerary though, and realized his flight comes in Monday morning. So, I had to switch gears and get myself back in the mindset of going again. 

Most Christian bloggers won’t be writing about something so ridiculous as an aversion to Easter on their Good Friday blog. But, here I am. And, I admit that I am sorry. The problem is, deeply personal, so if you enjoy Easter, just know that this very flawed little person is quite aware of how aweful it sounds. I can tell you what the resurrection of Christ means to me. Ironically I was asked to share it in an Easter Service a few years ago. It means LIFE. The Bible says when God created us He breathed life into us. And, if that is the case, when man turned his back on God, he essentially cut off his own air supply. Unfortunately, if you aren’t breathing, you’re dying. Anybody else out there feel the absolutely suffocating effect of life without God? Life without hope? I have. Though I grew up in church, until I had my own personal and powerful encounter with God, I just didn’t get it. I don’t necessarily think it’s the fault of “the church.” I think it’s more just something to do with the human condition. The Bible itself talks about how the gospel is beyond understanding. It is totally counterintuitive. Merit is thrown out the window by it. Effort is made worthless by it. Works accomplish nothing in it. It is all based on an incalculable need being met with meritless grace. This is something that just would not fit in my brain for any amount of hearing it. I would venture to say that most of us still don’t grasp it. We just don’t get that all we bring to the table in our relationship with God is emptiness. We try very hard to bring something worthwhile and we sometimes demand that others do too. And, really we are quite sincerely doing it all in a genuine effort to reconnect with God. But trying to grasp what we know to be unattainable holiness (God) will always end in disappointment (when we realize we can’t) or delusion (when we think we can). Disappointment leads to defeat which often leads to walking away. Delusion leads to pride and self-righteousness which makes us hypocrites. Saying “we all fall short” and then claiming to have gotten “up” enough is just obviously contradictory. (Let me just interject here that the falling short itself does not = hypocrisy. I can intend to get to a specific place in my car and I am not a hypocrite when my car breaks down along the way. Making mistakes is not hypocrisy, it’s just human.) 

  Anyway, after a childhood in the church, I eventually gave up completely on God, because of my own disappointment, and fully surrendered to belief in well... nothing. When I did still believe in Jesus, I also believed that I ought to feel this way, look this way, act this way, not struggle in this or that area... I couldn’t fathom the idea that He really didn't expect me to give Him something to love. I knew I couldn't do it so I just didn't believe it anymore - though I wanted to. I became a very reluctant atheist during my late teens. I did not feel free or enlightened by my atheism as some people seem to be.  I felt depressed by the utter meaninglessness of life. And, I surrendered fully to the depression and dove headlong into an eating disorder to numb my existence. It was after several years in this that I had my first real experience with God and realized why I had missed Him completely in church. Though, I heard the gospel over and over, I always felt, every time I walked in the door was that I wasn’t enough. I couldn’t do or be anything right. My doubts and questions and issues were beyond help and answers. My flaws were unfixable, unwanted and too hideous... It wasn’t necessarily that this was always communicated to me. I was pretty good at telling it to myself. What He told me when I finally had a real encounter with Him was simply, “Honey, you can’t. That is the point of the Gospel and of the cross. I had to do it for you.” 

We can’t reconnect the air hose on our own. After He has restored us we can breathe in and out like we have got our life back , but our dependence on Him is always consistent. HE IS OUR AIR. And, I guess this brings me to my struggle with Easter Sunday. While I love the God that brought life to utterly desperate, hopeless me, what I tend to remember on Easter is the many services I sat feeling so completely wrong for not being moved to the proper level of somberness by the songs or the dramas or the flowers etc...The bigger the “production” the harder it is for me, because until it was real for me all it was was an elaborate “production”. I still struggle with looking around at people more moved than me and feeling like a loser.  The truth is that He has never been more real to me on an Easter Sunday than He was the day that I met Him. I was just alone with my Bible on a very isolated and undecorated rooftop in Nepal. I know this is not the case for everyone. I know this is my story. I guess I just want to put it out there. I humbly submit that maybe it isn’t about whether I feel something enough on one certain day out of the year. Maybe, by trying to solicit a certain level of emotion I am just trying to be enough on my own again. The thing about me is I tend to hear Him the most in simpler places and places of solitude and I think thats okay. The real truth is we need Him. Thats it. That’s what we need to NOT miss. It’s incredibly simple. If you don’t understand what I am saying at all, if you love the extra effort put into Easter Sunday, if you love this holiday and the service, just soak in it. Don’t let me discourage anything about this Sunday for you. Maybe you see it all much clearer than I did. I am just reminding myself right here that it is not about what I bring to this Easter anymore than it is about what I bring to the cross. Its just all about Jesus.