In the Light of the Resurrection

I had an opening for this one planned.

It was supposed to come out Spy Wednesday but my computer died as per my last post and I got sick, again, for the third time this Lent. I have a new computer coming and I’m taking antibiotics for the first time since 2018 when I split friend’s prescription when we both got the flu doing the road up the east coast. We stopped in his hometown in Virginia where went to the doctor and I both of us slept in his childhood bed for three days straight.

We performed comedy in art galleries, comedy clubs, and sports bars while sweat profusely, energized by emergen-c and Jagerbombs, and barely able to stand-up. We drove out of Philly, drunk on five pitchers of the cheapest beer we could afford after the tolls took our travel fund, into New York—a two hour flu-ridden, slurry drive into Bed-Stuy. It was my second time in New York: I slept for two days in a Brooklyn basement and my car was towed because my friends parked it by a hydrant high on coke and drinking tall boys of PBR.

And this was before we lost a tire in East Cleveland.

I loathe Cleveland.

Anyway, antibiotics got me through the best/worst out-of-state gigs of my “career” and they sure are doing the trick getting me to the baptismal font tomorrow. I mean, I did twenty minutes on stage barely able to put a coherent thought together, body failing me sideways, and getting heckled by pissed off Pittsburgh Penguins fans—if I can get through that well… You’d be confident going forward, too.

May Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter be blessed for you all.

Where I feel, theologically, we as Christians miss the mark is focusing our efforts and energy on the cross. The cross is a part of the Christian journey, no doubt–the path requires death to self, even death on a cross. Unfortunately, for so many of us we reach that precipice and just aren’t willing to let go of this life, we put Golgotha far off into the distance. The goal posts keep moving because we grow comfortable carrying our cross. We get comfortable being ashamed, hurt, betrayed, and assume this is the Christian life—reveling in our own torment, as if walking through hell more than anyone else makes us like Christ. 

This is self-righteous pride and it refuses us the ability to let go of our trials and… well, be crucified once and for all. This is the reincarnating aspect of all life where we refuse to surrender to God’s plan and just walk in circles, making the same mistakes over and over again. Aimlessly wandering like the cross is on one side of us, where we drag it, producing a trough with it around us–the ouroboros becomes something we create for ourselves, going nowhere, severing our life from God. 

The Way to ascend from this aimless wandering is shown to us by Christ, through death—putting our cross down and willingly crucifying ourselves because we believe in the Resurrection. 

If we do not believe in the Resurrection then it is no wonder we do not crucify ourselves, maybe it is easier to carry our cross than it is accepting that Christ reordered the universe by rising from death. God, the Creator of the celestial realms–the Ground of All Being–changed existence itself through His death and Resurrection. Admittedly, this is where I am not as candid with others regarding the Christian tradition–it is much easier explaining Christianity as a meditation on death or as a path toward union with God than it is discussing the Resurrection.

It is easier for me to carry my cross, to the ends of the earth, facing hardships along the way than it is to accept that there is life through death. 

I think by this point in Lent, I can appreciate just how self-centered and egotistical I am beneath all of the spiritual practices and theory. I am afraid to die to myself. I’m scared of crucifying the self, because I know what that means…  

I talked to a priest a while ago: we discussed Judas and his sin. 

My feeling was that Judas committed two cardinal sins which were qualifying God by selling Christ out to the Romans. Judas put value on the kingdom and his connection with God that was traded for financial gain. This is a sin because it is trading something eternal for the transient. 

My other thought was Judas committed the greatest sin in assuming his crime was unforgivable. He could not seek forgiveness because he thought he was unforgivable which is positioning oneself as God, which is easier to do if one sells that connection for thirty silver pieces. So he hung himself out of despair because he thought his sin was greater than the love of God. 

My friend told me she thought of it differently where she saw Judas as the only disciple who knew what it took to really follow Christ. What the price of discipleship actually asks if the person and he couldn’t take it. 

This is important because the latter touches on something I feel should not be overlooked, which is that Judas may have sold out Christ from greed or fear but his actions do not stand alone as the only betrayal against Christ by His disciples. The other disciples abandoned Him and denied Him like Judas but the only difference is they repented. 

They denied all the same. 

Which goes to show how difficult this path really is, how much discipleship asks of the one who would follow The Way…

Sometimes it feels easier to just die. 

I want to align my will with God’s will, I want to detach from the mundane, transient world; I want to die to myself for the sake of God’s providence, to become a purer vessel through which the Divine energies flow… I can say all this, I can even mean it, but in reality this is a spiritual step that is not easily approached. It could take decades to become that which we seek. But no progress can be made unless we accept that by giving up ourselves what we gain will be greater than we can imagine. 

We have to believe that. 

Maybe I am embarrassed by the outlandish notion of the Resurrection, more probably I just don’t understand it at all. I cannot explain the Resurrection: it’s just too much to comprehend. Trying to wrap my head around the Resurrection might as well be similar to wrapping my mind around God. 

You’re better off taking your mind and tossing it into the mouth of madness than to even try.

But you know… The Resurrection should be seen for what it is: Christ–in alignment with the Will of God–plundering the land of the dead, resurrecting, and ascending to sit at the right hand of the Father. 

We’re called to do this work. 

We are tasked to align our will with God’s will and die to the self—this is the big ask of Christianity. This is not where the spiritual journey ends, though. We have to go to Hell. We have to face our demons… We have to confront that which we do not want to confront. We do this because… Oh shit… We do this because there are parts of ourselves that we would rather not face. We do this to bring those aspects that we would have remained hidden to the Light.

We’re plundering the land of the dead. The Resurrection is coming forth, whole–in glory and wounded. All of those things we would rather keep shoved down; all our pain, all our hurt, and venomous qualities… They are a part of us. They are us and those wounds remain, but they are healed, glorified, and become strengths through the Resurrection. 

We ascend to come closer to God, sitting with Him as a child of the Father–brethren to Christ. We ascend, coming closer because we no longer are actively severing ourselves from Him–we bring all of ourselves forward, lying them before God. We are able to be healed because there is nothing left to hide. We are able to become known by God through us knowing ourselves… Know thyself, and thou shalt know God.  

This is sacrificing the self, every aspect of our pain and filth that we find within the recesses of our hearts, minds, and souls we bring forth to God, no longer separating anything from His consuming love. This is an act of faith. It is an act of faith because it hurts; it is painful to step into Truth, to become Truth.

This is the Christian practice of ἐκένωσεν (kenosis). This is The Way. God poured Himself into Creation and to be with us, so we pour ourselves out before God so we might be with Him. “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

The Bible is a tool that has too often been used as a weapon of violence and power, so much so that a general attitude toward Christianity is that it is a religion based on violence and power. This will not do, it simply will not do, because it is a misapprehension of this sacred text. The Bible is a tool to point back toward ourselves—the Resurrection is neither an allegory nor is it a fantastic story where the θεάνθρωπος sacrificed Himself for our sins so that we don’t have to anything but believe in Him.

No, we put our faith in Him so that we will have the strength to do what He has done.

“Faith is the intrinsic working-in-advance of that which we hope for, an inner proof of that which still rests, unseen, in the lap of the future” (Hebrews 11:1).

It’s a Twelve-Step solution: “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30). God may work in mysterious ways, but it really takes us opening up to Him that we allow those ways to manifest in our lives. We can do nothing by ourselves; we cannot even die on the cross before align our will with the will of the Father, the Ground of All Being.

When we carry our cross without aligning our will with that of the Father than we are leaning on our own understanding with no purpose or direction. It is easy for the one doing this to use their cross as a means of power and violence.

Sometimes we might even think that all the spiritual labor has been done by Christ: He died, He rose, He saved us. We’re not called to twiddle our thumbs.

The commandment not to judge others is not so that we’ll become better people, the commandment is to help us focus on what is important—the Work.

Pursuing God (the only worthwhile vocation) is the most difficult path to follow because the more we try to confront God the more we are confronted with ourselves. It becomes clear that we are in the way of unifying with Him Who has no beginning or end; it is we who are in the way of considering our neighbors… neighbors. 

It is we who are in the way of having the capacity for love, forgiveness, and gratitude.

To approach God is certain death to the “I”-making self. 

The more one does move closer—these things become our pathways to God. They allow us to move past ourselves; they allow us to see others as they are and they allow us to accept who we are by holding fast to humility. 

There is no other way to approach God.

A year ago I practiced the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram for the last time and by doing so I witnessed the miracle and reality of the Holy Eucharist. 

My life changed. My life refocused. Nothing else matters, this is what I am devoting my life to.

This is real. 

Christ is the living God.  

Christ reigns over life and death.

I have more doubt about who I am than the truth of that. 

Lent is almost over and I have no idea if I’m getting better. 

I don’t know what that means or looks like.

I have no idea if I am getting stronger. 

I do know the more I want to become “holy” the more of myself I have to bring to God.

The closer I try moving toward God the less I can hide to be in His presence.

I have no idea if I am getting better. 

The closer we move toward Divinity the more abhorrent it feels to keep acting the same way as we always have, the more wretched it feels to stay disconnected from Him.

My mistakes feel worse. Hurting others feels worse. 

I have no idea if I am getting better. 

I can see myself a lot clearer these days and I can’t be sure I like what I see, which is good, right? Things to work on, but sometimes it feels like the things we need to work on are impossible to fix. Maybe we are all just in our fallen state where we’ll be forever. 

Forever falling, forever making the wrong choices, forever hurting ourselves and others… until we stop living through the lens of the cross.

I have no idea if I’m getting better, but I realize the Resurrection is not something to just believe in. It is something to practice.

If there is such a thing I don’t know what it looks like, but if I don’t start I will carry my cross forever, in circles, until I either live as if it is stuck up my ass or I forget why the hell I’m dragging it around anyway.

It seems we’re all just struggling no matter what we do because we refuse to acknowledge the cross as a means to die to the self so we might be Resurrected—refined, purer, and closer to God and our neighbors. The cross is a means to dive within; the cross is the altar lying before us all, always. 

And I can’t help but wonder if the whole point of Christianity is to die to the self so there are no more excuses to doubt who we are, no longer living in a crucified illusion of self.  And we don’t stop there. We put faith in the Resurrection, because Christ’s sacrifice was an act of love, an act of love that we are called to follow in this life.

We put faith in the Resurrection because dying to the self is terrifying, but we know God is with us, reigning over the land of both life and death. We know what rewards follow our plunder and where we might sit if only we let go of our life for God’s sake.

The Christian victory is in us—risen.

Si comprehends, non est Deus