Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ is coming again. If it’s true, then all that we have and all that we are and all that we do must be shaken to the core by this reality. If it’s not true, then there is nothing worth living for, and nothing worth dying for. Either the universe has a purpose, or it does not. Either God reconciled sinful humanity to Himself through the death of Christ, or there is no reconciliation between Creator and creation, God is indeed very far away, and the world is without hope. Each one of us needs to wrestle with this “Christ has died” odyssey until we land on one side or the other. Indifference is not an option. Easter bunnies, eggs and chocolate are a convenient smokescreen. Religious tradition, whether in its more formal expressions or in its sentimental, trivialized, sappy, bumper sticker and slogan version, is a more deceptive smokescreen because it can begin to look and feel like reality, giving us cultural trappings without the substance that the trappings were designed to represent, so that those who embrace the trappings assume that they have also embraced the reality. Politicized religion is even more deceptive, for it releases itself as a tool into the hands of those whose agenda is not God’s agenda, corrupting itself into a grotesque caricature of what it was intended to be. Christianity wrapped in an American flag is no longer Christianity. Christ didn’t die so that we could make America great again. The reality is that we, who are sinners, were reconciled to a God, who is Holy, through the death of Christ, who died in our place, so that we who are the redeemed will bring eternal praise to God, for His eternal glory and for our eternal joy. If it’s true, then we must embrace it with the totality our being. If it’s false, then we need to run away as fast as we can and as far as we can and never look back. The one thing we can’t do is to remain indifferent.
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