A Resistant Student

Guess what. It’s Easter Sunday. This was a super important day when I was growing up. Whether Christian or Jewish, the Easter season included Purim, Passover, and the Day of First Fruits (not by coincidence). So, yes, virtually ALL civilized families that I knew of were seriously celebrating this series of days as THE most important of the year. It seems this is not so for most people today. It’s a holiday around which Spring Break is celebrated, Beach Weekend, or fun family trips to somewhere other than where you live. It’s also, a time to celebrate rabbits, colored eggs, and way too many sweets. I never really understood the connection of the resurrection of Jesus with anthropomorphic bunnies and hard-boiled eggs. Someone will have to explain that to me some day.

Admittedly, I’ve been in a funk for quite some time, which is not to be celebrated on any level. I thought that if I streamed a bunch of those old Easter cinematic spectaculars, plus a few newer ones, I’d get into the proper mood. Nice try.

Although I was raised Episcopalian, I describe myself as a Zen Judeo Christian. I didn’t set out to leave my church, but it did leave me and many others like me. I am on a learning journey, but moving at my own pace and in my own direction, even though OTHERS are trying to corral me to their particular interpretations. Probably, the problem is that I spend far more time reading other people’s explanations, interpretations, or amplifications on the contents of the Bible than I do reading the actual Bible itself. Why am I so resistant? Without understanding the context and antiquated language, it is hard to fully understand.

I was watching a recent 3+ hour film about the life of Jesus and it occurred to me that if His words were indeed delivered as by the actor portraying him, no wonder scads of followers turned away from Him. Seriously, up to a point his teachings and miracles were beyond reproach. But then, when he started declaring himself the living bread of God, that to gain everlasting life and communion with God, the way was to not only follow him but to eat his flesh and drink his blood as the heavenly bread and wine… when he declared that he was in actuality the Son of God, it was easy for his peers to respond, “Hey, we KNOW your parents. We KNOW Joseph and Mary. Who do you think you’re fooling? And, by the way, this is sounding an awful lot like cannibalism which is absolutely UNGODLY!”

Wow! What incredible chutzpah this man had!

When I was younger, reading about the people of the Bible being “stiff necked” and resisting the directives of the prophets, I didn’t get it. To be practical and honest, Jesus’s claims are hard to accept. In fact, if you are TRYING to seriously follow the historic commandments of God as a religious Jew (or as a luke-warm Christian, today), those claims go down the gullet like a dry brick of charcoal saturated in lighter fluid. The man is either telling an incredible truth or he is the king of unbelievable narcissistic blasphemy.

In order to believe him, forgetting about the miracles – which most people didn’t actually see for themselves, you first must accept a supreme and metaphysical Creator God who would magically impregnate an unmarried teenage virgin girl to make possible His Earthly physical incarnation. I suspect that, as is true today, many educated people in those days were operating largely on tradition and a symbolic acceptance of Biblical stories and prophesies.

And, yet… every part of his life was foretold in the Old Testament prophesies. Every notable action he took was on an established and related Jewish holy day, as if to illustrate the deeper meaning of the day. Everything fits perfectly, right down to the resurrection on the Day of First Fruits.

Where does it say that a seed must die and be buried in the ground to grow into a new plant? Ah yes, it is explained in the New Testament, in John 12:24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”

So new generations of life are dependent upon the death and transformation of a seed. This is not supernatural, but an absolute fact of nature.

Now, I’m no one to lead anyone along the path of belief, only to suggest you travel the path of questions to be asked… and answered in due time.

This might seem unrelated, but my logic follows its own path. It follows the path of a lover of Science Fiction. In my youth I got hooked on classic Science Fiction by my dad and brother, you know, the greats; Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury. Often people ask me why I read that drivel, but my explanation is simple. A classical Science Fiction story is always presented as a possibility to be explored and solved, a philosophical question wrapped in an exciting story: If you can accept “X” as potential truth, what might be its logical trajectory?

If you like to think of yourself as “logical,” someone who “follows the science,” or someone who subscribes to the Socratic method, you might try that when approaching both Old and New Testament investigations. And, by the way, if you aren’t currently asking deep questions, my opinion is that you probably already died and someone forgot to tell you. Meanwhile, I think I have some important reading to do so I can ask better questions.