An Easter Letter
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My reflection this morning is an open
letter to the children who ask me why we celebrate Easter. Dear Children, Your question is a good one.
Why do we celebrate Easter? Almost
two thousand years ago a Jewish child named Jesus was born.
We know for a fact that a child named Jesus of Nazareth was born in
Judea, and that he grew to be a man.
We also know that he lived in a violent, angry time.
His country was controlled by the Romans and their army. Stories from the Christian scripture,
or New Testament gospels, tell us that Jesus was a teacher and a
prophet. According to these
stories Jesus said powerful and strange things that people weren't used to
hearing. He said "Love
your enemies" and "Blessed are the poor."
He spoke about love, peace, helping people in need, and change. The second fact that we know about
Jesus is that he was killed. He
was crucified on a wooden cross. This is where the story gets hard to
understand. Why was he
killed? This is the hardest part of the story for me.
Why was a person who talked about peace, love, helping others, and
change, killed? As best I can understand, Jesus' ideas
challenged the occupying Roman government and religious authorities.
Jesus was killed because his ideas scared people.
He taught that love could change the world, and people weren't
ready to be changed by love. Jesus
taught that a generous, open love for family, friends, strangers, and
especially people you don't like, is stronger and better than owning
things, taking things, or pushing people around and hurting them. Jesus taught that love, not power, can
heal someone who is hurt, scared, or alone.
He taught that love, not power, can change the world. I believe this is the most important message he taught, and
the one that is hardest to understand or live by.
It is difficult to love people, especially when we don't like them
or agree with them. This is
the reason we celebrate Easter. We
need to honor and remember his message. Our Christian friends celebrate Easter
as the day Jesus miraculously rose from the dead three days after he was
killed. They believe that
Jesus continued to live and teach on the earth for a while longer.
They believe that his resurrection was a sign that he was divine,
the Son of God sent to earth to save humans.
Some Unitarian Universalists believe this, and some do not. I used to wonder if the story of Jesus
were word for word true. Did
he really rise from the dead? Eventually
I decided that I can't ever know for sure and that it doesn't matter to me
whether or not I do know. The
message of love over power is so important that I don't need to believe
that Jesus is the Son of God in order to learn from his message.
Every day I can ask myself, "Am I ready to be changed by
love?" Every day I can ask myself, "What can I do to change
this world with my love?" Every religion tells stories with kernels of truth. I am grateful for the Easter story and what it teaches. Every day I struggle to live the truth of love, not power. We all do. It is a human story. For this reason we celebrate Easter as a day of love, a day of joy, a day of hope, a day we can begin to build a beautiful city. In
Love and Faith,
Sharon -with
grateful acknowledgment to Rev. Dick Gilbert for his inspirational Open
Letter to a Unitarian Universalist Child at Easter.
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