“Happy” Easter
Good Friday, two days before Easter Sunday is the day of commemoration of Jesus’s death. There are various of interpretations of Jesus’s death by Christians. The essential idea is that Jesus was a substitute, he died as a stand-in for everyone else. The word sacrifice is typically used. The ancient religious understanding of sacrifice to a god, is that the god accepts the victim’s destruction in lieu of the fated elimination of the community by circumstances direct or indirect which the deity allows to happen. That was the mind set of our ancestors, and this is what they did in a time of famine, outbreak of disease, or war. A life for a life, —simple, brutal, to the point. And do you think the sacrificial victim happily stepped forward? Hardly. These were individuals who had no choice.
So with Jesus. The reports which we have of his message clearly show how antithetical his movement would have been to Roman law and order. Indeed, Roman law was beneficial to the majority. The empire was knit together by decent roads, travel was safe. Roman engineering guaranteed clean water. Civil society was structured by Roman jurisprudence, and so on. But the order was maintained as needed by the sacrifice of an individual, or as many individuals as necessary to keep things humming along.
At the human level Jesus knew very well what was going to happen, as he stood before the Provincial Governor, who represented the Imperium. Pilate would do what he was expected to do. And this inconvenient trouble-maker would not be the last. The efficient way forward was to eliminate the cause of trouble. And so it remains to day. A life for a life.
On this gray morning with intermittent showers, may I suggest we mourn the men who were caught up in the blast of the GBU-43/B bomb that was dropped on the cave complex in Afghanistan yesterday. Mourn them not because we agree with them or understand them, as we do not. But simply because they were human beings in the wrong place, at the wrong time, sacrificed in the throes of power to maintain it’s brand of order. Almost certainly they died more quickly than did Jesus. The massive blast was a mile in radius. The blast sucked the air from the passages, as it crushed rock entries. Crucifixion was a effective statement. The 20,000 pound bomb costing 16 million to develop is likewise meant to be an effective statement.
Happy Easter!
2 thoughts on ““Happy” Easter”
” Also, let me know if the train of thought is sufficiently connected.” I get the impression you have some doubts? Indeed, there appears to be some value to this railroad as metaphor. But may need to switch the cars around and kick the wheels.
The sacrifice OF a (presumed) God, verses the sacrifice TO a (presumed) God, may indeed be very subtly entwined. This could be a topic needing exploration entirely on its own.
But the act of dropping Big Mother-f___ing of all Bombs on people has little to do with sacrifice –except perhaps for those calling themselves martyrs. Certainly the American people’s sacrifice to this war has been blunted, except for some who quietly sacrificed everything, not ever striving for martyrdom. The American people have sacrificed mostly indirectly; lousy roads and schools, little prospect for livelihood. I’d say that the American 0.01% have made negligible sacrifice, if not actually thriving. Once folks think of themselves as martyrs, their actions are vulnerable to fools and tyrants.
I’d say, and this is only my opinion today, that any actions taken over the last couple weeks have little to do with protecting Christian Babies, or even preserving the Republic. “Big-Bomb-Go-Boom,” is just our Silver-Back jockeying for position among the rest of the Silver-Backs. The rest of us, just sitting on the edge, picking flies of each other’s backs, applaud and do not foresee anything wrong.
Picking flies off of each other’s back while applauding, is a fine metaphor indeed. I am sure that we are all watching Fox News as we congratulate each other. Thank you for the relevant commentary.