Musings on Easter and Passover...
Apr. 16th, 2017 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Wasn't feeling well this weekend, so stayed home and watched the 1973 film version of Godspell and the 2013 arena staging of Jesus Christ Superstar back to back this morning. I did not watch The Ten Commandments with Charleton Heston, that many people I know do, annually, as a drinking game.
I did not know that Victor Garber (from DC Legends of Tomorrow, and Alias) starred as Jesus in "Godspell" (Lynn Thigpen was also in it along with David Haskell who died in 2000). Just in case you want to see what he was like in 1973, see video below, singing one of my favorite songs from the musical:
The musical is based on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the Gospel that focuses mainly on the parables, and has very little of the passion. In the Stephen Schwartz musical, John the Baptist calls various people around NYC to Central Park, where he baptizes them in a fountain, and they meet Jesus, who leads them through a series of parables...in surreal story fest, where they dance around the city, across empty streets, buildings, and vacant stores. At one point they are dancing on the top of the World Trade Center, singing..."All for the Best"...which is weirdly ironic.
Jesus Christ Superstar
In direct contrast, is about everything that happened in the Gospel according to Luke, and focuses on the Passion or the persecution of Jesus. And the horror of it.
I Don't Know How to Love Him from 2013 Arena Tour
Gesthemane - 2000 filmed version. This is an insane song by the way. You have to have a wide range to sing it, and great control. Everyone has tried it, from Michael Crawford to Kermit the Frog (yes, really). But I like the song and the metaphors...it really talks about the human relationship with something greater, and how to do what feels impossible. Martin Luther King may well have sung a similar song, as would Joan of Arc, and various other smaller christs who found themselves sacrificed for something larger than themselves...and wondering if it even matters.
2. The spring brings in the oddest holidays...they are about death, freedom and rebirth. Echoing and intertwining with each other.
Passover celebrates how God freed the Jews from Egypt after thousands of years of slavery. Then due to their own stupidity, they were lost in the desert for many many more. Not fully obtaining their promised land until well into the 1950s or so it seems, and even then...it's not been exactly paradise. Perhaps because their idea of paradise and God's isn't quite the same? It can be realized of course...
Easter celebrates how God freed or attempted to...humanity from the slavery of the material world and its demands. Issuing humanity to a paradise...through death and sacrifice. Except this round instead of killing and torturing the enemy, because that apparently sent the wrong message and didn't quite work as expected, God sacrifices himself. Hoping people figure it out. That paradise can be realized if we let go of ourselves...turn away from vengeance, eye-for-an-eye, let go of the grudges, and confess our sins, love each other...
Of course it doesn't quite work out that way.
I found myself wondering as I watched the Jesus story unfold for the millioneth time, for some reason I don't get tired of it, while I can't re-watch the Ten Commandments. (Although that could just be that particular version of it.) Anywho, I find myself wondering...what would have happened if Jesus had not been crucified? If the society around him, the Jewish Rulers and the Roman ones had chosen to ignore what he was doing and he just over time...disappeared? Would the Roman Empire have crumbled? Would we have had the Holocaust? What would have happened if Egypt hadn't enslaved the Jews? What would have happened if the Jews hadn't worshipped false idols when they came out of Egypt? What would have happened if the stories...both the Passover one and the Jesus one...had ended differently? Would we still be telling them today? Would we need to?
And more importantly why are they still told? Why do they still have resonance over 2000 years since their inception? Neither story was written when it happened. Neither is completely true. Memory can be embellished, and certain items are lost in translation. But the endings are true. Recorded data shows that. The Jews did leave Egypt and were freed, most likely by the Prophet Moses. And Jesus was a prophet and teacher, who was crucified on a cross by Rome for insurrection against the state.
Both stories are about slavery or a slavery of sorts, both are about the poor struggling to be free, both are about the disenfranchised, and both are about militarized states or authorities who value power and wealth over human life or the environment. Who, as Jesus sings in Jesus Christ Superstar, have no understanding of what glory is or power is...And both stories, unfortunately, echo through the ages...there has not been a time in human history in which this is not the case. Ironically, we find the Jewish State of Israel guilty of the crimes the Egyptians were guilty of in Exodus, not to the same extent of course -- no slavery, but they are intolerant of other religions, militaristic, and value wealth and property over human life -- they are still worshiping the false gods in the desert. The Christian faith is not much better, the televangelists and big churches, celebrating their huge masses...look a bit like the Pharisees that Jesus condemned for turning the temple into a den of thieves. In Godspell, Jesus states, you can not serve two masters, God and Money. I mentioned this to a friend, and she said but they do...and I wondered, how successfully.
We celebrate Easter as we celebrate Christmas, but I'm not sure if people look deeply at the core of the stories..and see what they are saying. It's rather easy to go to church and sing, or post platitudes. It's much harder, I think, to take the message into your heart and try to live by it day by day. And I'm not saying you need to believe in any of this to do that. Actually, I've known agnostics and atheists who seem to live or get the message at the core of the story better than religious and die-hard believers. I don't see in either story, Jesus asking to be worshiped. He doesn't really say he's God, per se. What he's asking is that people look beyond themselves, care about something outside of themselves, to let go of their egos, and just love. To put love first and above all else. You don't have to worship or believe in God to do that, I don't think.
And I think the story is an important one. Or we couldn't keep telling it to ourselves every year. Some people just go to church twice a year -- Christmas and Easter. Some once - Easter. It's a story about someone who didn't want power or glory, but somehow managed to change the world. And what he did and what was done to him and what happened after is ...difficult to wrap one's mind around.
Godspell has women in it, singing major roles, Jesus Christ Superstar is almost all men. Irritating that. But it does feel like a male story -- about trying to stop male violence. Men are in power, not women. It is a patriarchy. So it takes a man, who acts in many ways like a woman in those times, humble, not violent, washing feet, healing, serving food...and he doesn't fight when they take him, beat him, whip him, and put him through hell. Crucifixion was the worst type of execution. It was their form of the death penalty. And he actually got off easy, most people took days to die, just hanging their, suffocating slowly. Jesus died that same day. Surrounded by others. All the gospels agree on how he died, when he died, and what happened...there was an eclipse, and the Temple cracked in half. The earth shook. Nature screamed at man's stupidity. And wrecked her on havoc in protest. Just as in Exodus or the Ten Commandments, nature wrecks her own havoc -- with a series of plagues, in protest to man's stupidity and depravity.
I look at the world today...and both Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell place their stories in a present context...more or less stating that those who refuse to understand the story, are doomed to relive it. And I think we are...reliving it, over and over and over again. We have not yet learned to turn the other cheek, to not react with vindictive rage at every small perceived slight (as I learned this past week when an attorney at my company reacted with vindictive rage at an offhand comment I may have made which was repeated to her out of context). We have not learned to put kindness before our own needs, fears, and desires. Or we wouldn't have had the problem on United, where a man is forcibly and violently removed from his seat. No one on the plane thought to ask the flight attendants if they could volunteer instead? And the crew did not think to ask to be put on another plane. Would it have mattered that much to be a day or two late to a final destination? Nor did anyone think of how this poor man may feel to have his image thrown across the internet.
The only thing Christ changed when he came to earth...appears to be who the people around him chose to worship. Horrible acts have been done in Christ's name and continue to be done in his name. Wars have been declared in his name. I can feel his pain in my bones. Can you imagine how horrible that is -- to have someone torture and flog another in your name? To kill that person the way you were killed, in your name? That was The Inquisition, and the Crusades...and the Holocaust, although I'm not sure the Nazis were Christian, I think they were non-secular. Which shows great evil can happen without religion as it's base cause or root or justification.
People blame God for the ills of the world, I blame people. All the horrors on this planet were caused directly or indirectly by human beings, some act or bad decision set off a series of ill-timed events...resulting in that tragedy. If you went back and followed the jagged line, you could probably find it. There really are no acts of god, but it easier to blame God. Then you don't have to worry but giving up your car, or your microwave or you air conditioner or your speed-boat or the numerous other items that make life easier and pleasurable.
Yet, yet...I don't think what I stated above is entirely true. I find myself, once again, arguing with myself as I often do...it's not an either or...and I think he did change things. So many people after he died, and rose again (metaphorically or literally or not at all depending on your views),
changed their minds. There were Romans who changed because of Christ and became Christians, which in turn chipped away at their empire. By the time the Romans invaded Great Britain, Rome was Christian. It wasn't celebrating the ancient Roman Gods, in some cases they incorporated their pagan views with Christianity, combining the two.
Christianity was in some respects more powerful than the other mythologies/religions/belief systems in that it was more inclusive. Judaism was and is, unfortunately, highly exclusive, also it had a superiority/inferiority complex that tended to alienate everyone. Which is one of the reasons the Jewish people have been oppressed, like it or not, they brought some of that on themselves. If you go around telling people that you are "the Chosen People" and that only people who are born Jewish are Chosen, don't be surprised if they want to kick you upside the head. I mean how would you feel if people said that to you? What Jesus tried to do is make Judaism less exclusive, he wanted to open it up to everyone. God is for everyone. My father's house has many rooms, there is a place for all beliefs not just one. You can stop killing each over your religious beliefs now, it does not matter what you believe, just love one another, be family, you nitwits.
Which is why Christianity became so popular. Even the Romans could join. So could the Greeks. All the gentiles. Those who ate unclean meat. That was the big thing Jesus did, he opened it up.
Nothing against Judaism, and yes, people can convert to it. They do all the time. But I think...the New Testament was in some ways easier to deal with, more appealing, and less restrictive.
I look at the two stories..and the Christian story in some respects seems less brutal than the Jewish one. Only one person dies in it, well one and all the people who would have been crucified regardless of his presence. While in the Passover story...quite a few people die. All the first sons of Egypt, children. That's a brutal story. It's why I don't like that story. I find it painful. Yet, it is the story that Jesus himself is honoring at the Last Supper, and it is the story that to a degree is incorporated in the Christian communion service. Every mass in various Christian denominations celebrates Passover. And, as brutal as that story is, it is so for a reason and it's still embedded in the Christian story for a reason...
The reason is, I think, to show there are different ways to be enslaved. In Exodus, or Passover, the Jews were enslaved by Egypt. In the Easter/Jesus Tale, they are enslaved in Judea, living under the control of the Romans, which is a militarized fascist state. Cruel and brutal. You get the death penalty for speaking out of turn. They are also, in both stories, enslaved in spirit. They feel powerless, so oppressed that they can't find a way out. There's no hope. They dream in both stories of a savior, a messiah.
So their God, the God of the Hebrews, of Abraham, sends them a leader, a guide. Moses in Exodus, who is reluctant and would rather not do it. And who never makes it to the promised land. Who came from the enemy...and was unexpected. The Hebrews are asked to believe in this stranger...this prophesied leader, who talks to burning bushes. And they do...somehow, and they are saved, briefly, they get lost in the desert for about a thousand years, and they themselves never see the promised land. But they are free in part. They are lost, because they don't trust themselves, trust God, instead they find something tangible to worship. Some false God. Money, wealth, false leaders. Much like we are doing today. Are we any different?
Thousands of years later. The Hebrews are once again under foreign rule, this time, Rome. And it's almost as cruel as Egypt. Not quite the same of course, but bad enough to wish for a Messiah, someone to overthrow the Romans and bring them back their homeland. To bring heaven on earth. This round, Jesus shows up, the son of a carpenter, lowest of the low. You have to understand what carpenters did back then...they created the crucifixions. They nailed the crosses together. That's what Joseph and Jesus did for a living. So, much like Moses, Jesus comes from left field. Oh he is Jewish, like Moses. And unlike Moses, raised in the faith. But not an educated rabbi. He becomes a follower of a rogue Jewish sect led by John the Baptist, then splinters off to create his own, which caused a little animosity with John, until John became a believer and lost his head. And he celebrates the high Jewish holidays. His religion and that of his followers is Judaism. They are just a fairly liberal leaning sect of the religion. And he tells stories, he's charismatic, a born leader, and speaker. He can hold the attention of thousands. And he performs miracles, heals the sick. But he doesn't want to overthrow the government, he doesn't want to win back their land for them, he speaks in metaphors, and when talks about the kingdom of heaven on earth, he's not talking about the Jews ruling the Romans...or vice versa, he's talking about a communal nation, where everyone is equal and all are brothers and sisters in love and kindness. His followers can't quite wrap their heads around this. He's trying to guide them out of a sort of slavery, and celebrates the Passover as the Last Supper in a different way, he says drink and eat this in memory of me -- of my words guiding you out of this desert, this slavery of your spirit, when I die, I will sacrifice my body, so I can free your spirits free your minds to embrace a world that is peaceful and harmonious.
He dies horribly. The story is graphically violent. He probably dies on a cross created by his father or himself...height of irony. And there are quite a few behind him. He dies on a field of crosses. Surrounded by criminals of various stripes. The despised. The down-trodden. The poor in spirit. And he forgives everyone around him. And leans his head towards the criminal who defended him and was kind.
Days later, he appears to various people. Mary Magdalene, Thomas, the Apostles, Paul, and some Romans...changing their lives, and ours as well. Slowly as time progresses, the gospels get written, some 40 years, even more in some cases, after his death. A new religion is founded. And people try to follow his words, but mostly they just worship him. The story keeps being told, in different ways. And various Christian sects sprout up, just like various Jewish ones had. And other prophets, similar to Jesus spread the word to other faiths, trying like Jesus to convince people to put love above all things. To create a world where we can live in harmony, and not give in to those seven deadly sins.
And every year, we go around the calendar, following these rituals. On lent, people give up wine or chocolate. Pope Francis asked that instead, they be kind to their neighbors of different religions, show tolerance, and give up ego. To turn the other cheek. Which moved me. On Passover, they go on a restrictive diet following each ritual. And the rituals help, the rules help, it gives people a moral code -- a way to find the harmony that Jesus and the others like him preached. A way to let go of that part of us that weighs us down and enslaves us, making it impossible at times to breath.
The Passover Story and the Easter Tale are about the same thing, in different ways...freedom from slavery. In both tales, a leader sacrifices himself so that others may be free. And in both stories, he doesn't quite succeed, at least not yet...but as each year passes, there's hope, and maybe this year...he will or rather his story will...and when that happens, it will no longer need to be told. Instead we'll tell a new one.
I did not know that Victor Garber (from DC Legends of Tomorrow, and Alias) starred as Jesus in "Godspell" (Lynn Thigpen was also in it along with David Haskell who died in 2000). Just in case you want to see what he was like in 1973, see video below, singing one of my favorite songs from the musical:
The musical is based on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the Gospel that focuses mainly on the parables, and has very little of the passion. In the Stephen Schwartz musical, John the Baptist calls various people around NYC to Central Park, where he baptizes them in a fountain, and they meet Jesus, who leads them through a series of parables...in surreal story fest, where they dance around the city, across empty streets, buildings, and vacant stores. At one point they are dancing on the top of the World Trade Center, singing..."All for the Best"...which is weirdly ironic.
Jesus Christ Superstar
In direct contrast, is about everything that happened in the Gospel according to Luke, and focuses on the Passion or the persecution of Jesus. And the horror of it.
I Don't Know How to Love Him from 2013 Arena Tour
Gesthemane - 2000 filmed version. This is an insane song by the way. You have to have a wide range to sing it, and great control. Everyone has tried it, from Michael Crawford to Kermit the Frog (yes, really). But I like the song and the metaphors...it really talks about the human relationship with something greater, and how to do what feels impossible. Martin Luther King may well have sung a similar song, as would Joan of Arc, and various other smaller christs who found themselves sacrificed for something larger than themselves...and wondering if it even matters.
2. The spring brings in the oddest holidays...they are about death, freedom and rebirth. Echoing and intertwining with each other.
Passover celebrates how God freed the Jews from Egypt after thousands of years of slavery. Then due to their own stupidity, they were lost in the desert for many many more. Not fully obtaining their promised land until well into the 1950s or so it seems, and even then...it's not been exactly paradise. Perhaps because their idea of paradise and God's isn't quite the same? It can be realized of course...
Easter celebrates how God freed or attempted to...humanity from the slavery of the material world and its demands. Issuing humanity to a paradise...through death and sacrifice. Except this round instead of killing and torturing the enemy, because that apparently sent the wrong message and didn't quite work as expected, God sacrifices himself. Hoping people figure it out. That paradise can be realized if we let go of ourselves...turn away from vengeance, eye-for-an-eye, let go of the grudges, and confess our sins, love each other...
Of course it doesn't quite work out that way.
I found myself wondering as I watched the Jesus story unfold for the millioneth time, for some reason I don't get tired of it, while I can't re-watch the Ten Commandments. (Although that could just be that particular version of it.) Anywho, I find myself wondering...what would have happened if Jesus had not been crucified? If the society around him, the Jewish Rulers and the Roman ones had chosen to ignore what he was doing and he just over time...disappeared? Would the Roman Empire have crumbled? Would we have had the Holocaust? What would have happened if Egypt hadn't enslaved the Jews? What would have happened if the Jews hadn't worshipped false idols when they came out of Egypt? What would have happened if the stories...both the Passover one and the Jesus one...had ended differently? Would we still be telling them today? Would we need to?
And more importantly why are they still told? Why do they still have resonance over 2000 years since their inception? Neither story was written when it happened. Neither is completely true. Memory can be embellished, and certain items are lost in translation. But the endings are true. Recorded data shows that. The Jews did leave Egypt and were freed, most likely by the Prophet Moses. And Jesus was a prophet and teacher, who was crucified on a cross by Rome for insurrection against the state.
Both stories are about slavery or a slavery of sorts, both are about the poor struggling to be free, both are about the disenfranchised, and both are about militarized states or authorities who value power and wealth over human life or the environment. Who, as Jesus sings in Jesus Christ Superstar, have no understanding of what glory is or power is...And both stories, unfortunately, echo through the ages...there has not been a time in human history in which this is not the case. Ironically, we find the Jewish State of Israel guilty of the crimes the Egyptians were guilty of in Exodus, not to the same extent of course -- no slavery, but they are intolerant of other religions, militaristic, and value wealth and property over human life -- they are still worshiping the false gods in the desert. The Christian faith is not much better, the televangelists and big churches, celebrating their huge masses...look a bit like the Pharisees that Jesus condemned for turning the temple into a den of thieves. In Godspell, Jesus states, you can not serve two masters, God and Money. I mentioned this to a friend, and she said but they do...and I wondered, how successfully.
We celebrate Easter as we celebrate Christmas, but I'm not sure if people look deeply at the core of the stories..and see what they are saying. It's rather easy to go to church and sing, or post platitudes. It's much harder, I think, to take the message into your heart and try to live by it day by day. And I'm not saying you need to believe in any of this to do that. Actually, I've known agnostics and atheists who seem to live or get the message at the core of the story better than religious and die-hard believers. I don't see in either story, Jesus asking to be worshiped. He doesn't really say he's God, per se. What he's asking is that people look beyond themselves, care about something outside of themselves, to let go of their egos, and just love. To put love first and above all else. You don't have to worship or believe in God to do that, I don't think.
And I think the story is an important one. Or we couldn't keep telling it to ourselves every year. Some people just go to church twice a year -- Christmas and Easter. Some once - Easter. It's a story about someone who didn't want power or glory, but somehow managed to change the world. And what he did and what was done to him and what happened after is ...difficult to wrap one's mind around.
Godspell has women in it, singing major roles, Jesus Christ Superstar is almost all men. Irritating that. But it does feel like a male story -- about trying to stop male violence. Men are in power, not women. It is a patriarchy. So it takes a man, who acts in many ways like a woman in those times, humble, not violent, washing feet, healing, serving food...and he doesn't fight when they take him, beat him, whip him, and put him through hell. Crucifixion was the worst type of execution. It was their form of the death penalty. And he actually got off easy, most people took days to die, just hanging their, suffocating slowly. Jesus died that same day. Surrounded by others. All the gospels agree on how he died, when he died, and what happened...there was an eclipse, and the Temple cracked in half. The earth shook. Nature screamed at man's stupidity. And wrecked her on havoc in protest. Just as in Exodus or the Ten Commandments, nature wrecks her own havoc -- with a series of plagues, in protest to man's stupidity and depravity.
I look at the world today...and both Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell place their stories in a present context...more or less stating that those who refuse to understand the story, are doomed to relive it. And I think we are...reliving it, over and over and over again. We have not yet learned to turn the other cheek, to not react with vindictive rage at every small perceived slight (as I learned this past week when an attorney at my company reacted with vindictive rage at an offhand comment I may have made which was repeated to her out of context). We have not learned to put kindness before our own needs, fears, and desires. Or we wouldn't have had the problem on United, where a man is forcibly and violently removed from his seat. No one on the plane thought to ask the flight attendants if they could volunteer instead? And the crew did not think to ask to be put on another plane. Would it have mattered that much to be a day or two late to a final destination? Nor did anyone think of how this poor man may feel to have his image thrown across the internet.
The only thing Christ changed when he came to earth...appears to be who the people around him chose to worship. Horrible acts have been done in Christ's name and continue to be done in his name. Wars have been declared in his name. I can feel his pain in my bones. Can you imagine how horrible that is -- to have someone torture and flog another in your name? To kill that person the way you were killed, in your name? That was The Inquisition, and the Crusades...and the Holocaust, although I'm not sure the Nazis were Christian, I think they were non-secular. Which shows great evil can happen without religion as it's base cause or root or justification.
People blame God for the ills of the world, I blame people. All the horrors on this planet were caused directly or indirectly by human beings, some act or bad decision set off a series of ill-timed events...resulting in that tragedy. If you went back and followed the jagged line, you could probably find it. There really are no acts of god, but it easier to blame God. Then you don't have to worry but giving up your car, or your microwave or you air conditioner or your speed-boat or the numerous other items that make life easier and pleasurable.
Yet, yet...I don't think what I stated above is entirely true. I find myself, once again, arguing with myself as I often do...it's not an either or...and I think he did change things. So many people after he died, and rose again (metaphorically or literally or not at all depending on your views),
changed their minds. There were Romans who changed because of Christ and became Christians, which in turn chipped away at their empire. By the time the Romans invaded Great Britain, Rome was Christian. It wasn't celebrating the ancient Roman Gods, in some cases they incorporated their pagan views with Christianity, combining the two.
Christianity was in some respects more powerful than the other mythologies/religions/belief systems in that it was more inclusive. Judaism was and is, unfortunately, highly exclusive, also it had a superiority/inferiority complex that tended to alienate everyone. Which is one of the reasons the Jewish people have been oppressed, like it or not, they brought some of that on themselves. If you go around telling people that you are "the Chosen People" and that only people who are born Jewish are Chosen, don't be surprised if they want to kick you upside the head. I mean how would you feel if people said that to you? What Jesus tried to do is make Judaism less exclusive, he wanted to open it up to everyone. God is for everyone. My father's house has many rooms, there is a place for all beliefs not just one. You can stop killing each over your religious beliefs now, it does not matter what you believe, just love one another, be family, you nitwits.
Which is why Christianity became so popular. Even the Romans could join. So could the Greeks. All the gentiles. Those who ate unclean meat. That was the big thing Jesus did, he opened it up.
Nothing against Judaism, and yes, people can convert to it. They do all the time. But I think...the New Testament was in some ways easier to deal with, more appealing, and less restrictive.
I look at the two stories..and the Christian story in some respects seems less brutal than the Jewish one. Only one person dies in it, well one and all the people who would have been crucified regardless of his presence. While in the Passover story...quite a few people die. All the first sons of Egypt, children. That's a brutal story. It's why I don't like that story. I find it painful. Yet, it is the story that Jesus himself is honoring at the Last Supper, and it is the story that to a degree is incorporated in the Christian communion service. Every mass in various Christian denominations celebrates Passover. And, as brutal as that story is, it is so for a reason and it's still embedded in the Christian story for a reason...
The reason is, I think, to show there are different ways to be enslaved. In Exodus, or Passover, the Jews were enslaved by Egypt. In the Easter/Jesus Tale, they are enslaved in Judea, living under the control of the Romans, which is a militarized fascist state. Cruel and brutal. You get the death penalty for speaking out of turn. They are also, in both stories, enslaved in spirit. They feel powerless, so oppressed that they can't find a way out. There's no hope. They dream in both stories of a savior, a messiah.
So their God, the God of the Hebrews, of Abraham, sends them a leader, a guide. Moses in Exodus, who is reluctant and would rather not do it. And who never makes it to the promised land. Who came from the enemy...and was unexpected. The Hebrews are asked to believe in this stranger...this prophesied leader, who talks to burning bushes. And they do...somehow, and they are saved, briefly, they get lost in the desert for about a thousand years, and they themselves never see the promised land. But they are free in part. They are lost, because they don't trust themselves, trust God, instead they find something tangible to worship. Some false God. Money, wealth, false leaders. Much like we are doing today. Are we any different?
Thousands of years later. The Hebrews are once again under foreign rule, this time, Rome. And it's almost as cruel as Egypt. Not quite the same of course, but bad enough to wish for a Messiah, someone to overthrow the Romans and bring them back their homeland. To bring heaven on earth. This round, Jesus shows up, the son of a carpenter, lowest of the low. You have to understand what carpenters did back then...they created the crucifixions. They nailed the crosses together. That's what Joseph and Jesus did for a living. So, much like Moses, Jesus comes from left field. Oh he is Jewish, like Moses. And unlike Moses, raised in the faith. But not an educated rabbi. He becomes a follower of a rogue Jewish sect led by John the Baptist, then splinters off to create his own, which caused a little animosity with John, until John became a believer and lost his head. And he celebrates the high Jewish holidays. His religion and that of his followers is Judaism. They are just a fairly liberal leaning sect of the religion. And he tells stories, he's charismatic, a born leader, and speaker. He can hold the attention of thousands. And he performs miracles, heals the sick. But he doesn't want to overthrow the government, he doesn't want to win back their land for them, he speaks in metaphors, and when talks about the kingdom of heaven on earth, he's not talking about the Jews ruling the Romans...or vice versa, he's talking about a communal nation, where everyone is equal and all are brothers and sisters in love and kindness. His followers can't quite wrap their heads around this. He's trying to guide them out of a sort of slavery, and celebrates the Passover as the Last Supper in a different way, he says drink and eat this in memory of me -- of my words guiding you out of this desert, this slavery of your spirit, when I die, I will sacrifice my body, so I can free your spirits free your minds to embrace a world that is peaceful and harmonious.
He dies horribly. The story is graphically violent. He probably dies on a cross created by his father or himself...height of irony. And there are quite a few behind him. He dies on a field of crosses. Surrounded by criminals of various stripes. The despised. The down-trodden. The poor in spirit. And he forgives everyone around him. And leans his head towards the criminal who defended him and was kind.
Days later, he appears to various people. Mary Magdalene, Thomas, the Apostles, Paul, and some Romans...changing their lives, and ours as well. Slowly as time progresses, the gospels get written, some 40 years, even more in some cases, after his death. A new religion is founded. And people try to follow his words, but mostly they just worship him. The story keeps being told, in different ways. And various Christian sects sprout up, just like various Jewish ones had. And other prophets, similar to Jesus spread the word to other faiths, trying like Jesus to convince people to put love above all things. To create a world where we can live in harmony, and not give in to those seven deadly sins.
And every year, we go around the calendar, following these rituals. On lent, people give up wine or chocolate. Pope Francis asked that instead, they be kind to their neighbors of different religions, show tolerance, and give up ego. To turn the other cheek. Which moved me. On Passover, they go on a restrictive diet following each ritual. And the rituals help, the rules help, it gives people a moral code -- a way to find the harmony that Jesus and the others like him preached. A way to let go of that part of us that weighs us down and enslaves us, making it impossible at times to breath.
The Passover Story and the Easter Tale are about the same thing, in different ways...freedom from slavery. In both tales, a leader sacrifices himself so that others may be free. And in both stories, he doesn't quite succeed, at least not yet...but as each year passes, there's hope, and maybe this year...he will or rather his story will...and when that happens, it will no longer need to be told. Instead we'll tell a new one.
