He was hated for what he was, what God had made him. As he got older, the community realized that he was not like those around him, not like normal people. His family thought him strange, even to the point of wondering if he were ill with some kind of emotional problem. Even as a child he'd been, well, different. Some whispered about him, unsure of what to make of him. As a young man, he'd seemingly fit in, took up a trade. But it finally became too much and he chose to be no other than that whom God had fashioned.

At first his was a solitary life, a solitary secret. Temptation assailed him but he resolutely refused it. He traveled with a small community, became more sure of his identity. He reposed confidence in a few, trusted them, gradually at first then more fully with his personhood. The more open he became with the general community, however, the more that community failed to accept him, some becoming even hostile. They began to see him as a threat to community "standards", what they perceived as "normal" and even a danger to "family values", the "way God means things to be".

He continued undeterred, though, with his work of enlightenment, healing, being. Now hatred emerged, aimed toward him. The shadow work of blaming him for the community's problems now intensified and he became thought of as a serious menace. Hatred, pure hatred had him finally killed in the name of all that was holy to the populace.

We can't be fooled; it may have been a few who carried it out but ultimately it was the "system" which did him in. The verdict against him demanded status quo and a return to decency and order, and they strung him up. They had struck a blow for God and the way God intends things to be and they were content. Even many who knew him somewhat clucked their disappointment in the way he'd turned out, how he'd disgraced his family and neighbors. "I knew from the beginning he'd come to no good, and sure enough...".

His family and friends did the right thing for the broken body and then went away to ponder what had happened, wondering at the forces of hatred arrayed against the force of simple love. And God, being God, broke the rules and once for all declared new life which we now call the Resurrection. Rising, the One showed that first Easter Day that it isn't the way people think and act, it's Gods' inextinguishable love which is the Truth. That our God has created us and that his Son, true to his very being, put life on the line that we might in light and truth know the calculus of unconditional love, what it means to be loved and accepted 'as is", and that God's love in his beloved Jesus embraces us.

And then we have our vocation, our calling; it is simply to learn to love that way. "Love one another as I have loved you". May this time of Resurrection be a time of joy for you.

David L. Jeffery, djeffer3@bellsouth.net
Chaplain, Integrity, Jacksonville
Diocese of Florida
Holy Week and Easter, 1999

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