Easter arrived here with storms and gloom preparing the way for Palm Sunday. The weather wrought pain throughout my body making a restful night impossible. So no church today. Is it any wonder that I feel some sympathy, perhaps even empathy for Jesus Christ today?
The hurt doesn’t even begin to match what He went through, yet it does focus my thoughts on the events that happened nearly two thousand years ago in a less clinical way than usual. There has been a running thread of sympathy for Satan in popular culture ranging from Milton’s Paradise Lost to the Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil. Where is the sympathy for Jesus, I wonder?
For all its inaccuracy, gore and blood fetishism, The Passion of the Christ did attempt just that ten years ago and became a phenomenon as a result. But that was a unique occurrence that came out of an independent movement outside of the media mainstream and is not likely to be repeated. The chosen few who rule the culture have no interest in morals, commandments, and redemption. Religion is something to me mocked and suppressed at all turns now.
Getting back to Easter, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an interesting page up on the meaning of Easter. I like how it is presented and think it well represents the fundamental rule of missionary work, which is to keep things uncomplicated, accurate, and loving. You won’t find fire and brimstone there for Christ’s mission was one of salvation, not damnation.
The live chat questions from that page are something I’d like to answer in this post, since they are rather good queries.