These are my thoughts on this Easter Sunday. You may not agree and that is fine.

We are all different and still God loves us. I am thankful.

How Do I Witness?

Our Easter story sends us, as Christians, out to carry the message of the resurrection. How do I carry a message of love when I’ve been raised with the language of sacrifice? The traditional interpretation of our Easter story as Jesus’ sacrifice to an angry God to save me from having caused that anger is not helpful. I cannot accept that our loving God would require his only son, his child to endure the shame, humiliation and torture of crucifixion for me or anyone else. It makes no sense to me. This is not good news. What words, then, do I carry, do I witness about our Resurrection story?

I begin with a love story. God created the world and all that is within it, every living being. And God said, “It is Good.” That means every single one of us, regardless of our ethnicity, our economic status, our physical capability. Even with our mistakes, our cruelty, God loves every single one of us. God holds each of us more precious even than we hold our own children.

Just as our children disobey us at times, we all have a long history of disobedience to our parent God. Still, God loved us enough to come to earth in the humanity of Jesus to live with us, to heal us, to scold us, to challenge us, to teach us how to love one another. Even more, God chose to endure the worst that we could do: cruelty, torture unto death, to show us that God’s love is infinite, always, forever. Nothing we can do can defeat God’s love for us.

As human beings, we required the crucifixion of God with us, in order to learn how to love. For this, God in Jesus walked the journey of human life.

I am grateful to the depth of my being that no matter what I, or anyone else does, God’s love and forgiveness remains with us. God waits, ready for us to turn around, open our hearts and step into God’s loving arms. It’s that simple. It makes no sense in our minds, of course. We want punishment for others, not love. God wants only love. God’s love is beyond all logic. God’s love cannot be defeated, regardless of what we think or do. That is my witness. The resurrection story is a love story, so strong, so deep, so powerful, so much more than we can ever imagine. For this, I thank God.