In Remembrance of Death and Life

Today is Easter. Most of us know that this is a day to celebrate the resurrection of Christ and the beginning of Christianity of a sort. While all that is true to those who celebrate it, I can’t help but feel that we are missing the point.

The Spirit of the Second Birth

Jesus: “I say to thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus: “How can a man be born when he is old?” Jesus: “Except a man be born of water, and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit.” Nicodemus: “How can these things be?” Jesus: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him may be saved.” “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. "But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”

Those passages were liberally lifted from John in order to focus on an important part. When most christians hear or read John 3 they immediately harken to 3:16. But they miss the entire moment of this passage.

It essentially goes like this:

Nicodemus: “What does it look like to follow you?” Jesus: “It means to die to yourself so that you can truly live again.” Nicodemus: “How is that even possible?! All I know is about starting over is being born through my Mom. What does it even mean to be in the spirit?” Jesus: “My mission is to condemn the evil in this world. That’s what I have been doing since I was born. But I’m not here to punish people. My condemnation has a goal and a purpose. I am showing everyone how to live so that they can be saved from themselves. "Here’s the problem: People that are doing wrong are too ashamed to be open about it because they know their actions are hated and unacceptable. "The people that do right are held up as the goal for everyone to follow; we all realize that, but there’s a gap between those people who do right and those that do the wrong things. "I’m here to change that. Follow me as an example of what to do. Join me in helping those who cannot help themselves make this leap. If you follow me then we will all be saved. I am showing you the only way that this can be done.” “We must die to ourselves so that we can live with each other and do right by each other.”

I may have taken a bit of liberty there but if you study it you’ll find that this is in the “Spirit” of the entire text. Salvation and Spirit have more than one meaning.

So it is this Easter that I pursue a different kind of death and new life. I am striving to kill the old self; that self that wants to be always right, that wants to prove his skills against others in order to win, that wants to assumes that he should make more than others because he has put so much time and effort in to his betterment.

That self ignores the needs of others, ignores the knowledge and economic debt he has lived on and must perpetuate to the future of humanity, wallows in self pity when he does not have what he wants when he wants while most of the rest of the world needs even a fraction of what he squanders to make it through another day.

The new self that is to grow needs to be nurtured by respect for others, by questions which cannot be answered inside my own mind, by actions which serve and build up the lives of society in general.

The old self is, well selfish. The new self is generous. The old self takes. The new self provides.

And through the realization of our need to serve others, and through taking direct action and participation in it, regardless of borders, laws, rulers, and thugs, the kingdom of heaven is fulfilled; here - now. That is the spirit that drove Jesus to do what he did.

That is our part. The building is not done yet.

We must dismantle our ideas of how the world works, remove ourselves from it’s goals, and seek to do the work of god. It is our passion and mission to build a unified people without rulers to hinder, or preist to deter us, so that the peace, security, and the subsistance of the earth (ultimately all of creation) serves us all equally and well.

So Jesus died and was resurrected. But he did this well before he was hung on a cross. We need to remember that and follow in the same spirit.