Paschal

"Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

Words recorded in the Gospel according to John. We have entered an important season in the life of Christ-followers, a season often referred to as Easter, which began on Sunday and continues until Pentecost Sunday. I'm not sure why we adopted the language of Germanic pagan worship of the goddess Eostre. Now my ancestry is mostly German (Deutsch) so I take no offense at the linguistic origin, and I also recognize the attempts to infuse ancient cultic practice with Christian content - yet, I often wonder how successful those attempts have been. In many cases it seems that this practice causes more confusion than anything. I suppose that it does little good to criticize methods adopted hundreds of years ago - I simply hate to see us repeat past mistakes.

That is all tangential to my reflections this morning anyway. As I've been reading back through the Old Testament it is quite apparent that God does condescend to reveal himself through our human cultural practices. Take Solomon's vision at Gibeon, for instance. He participated in the detestable practice of offering sacrifices and burning incense on the high places. There at Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream allowing him to ask for whatever he wanted from the Lord. And we all know that Solomon's request for a discerning heart to lead the people was pleasing to God - so the Lord not only promised him wisdom to administer justice, but also riches and honor, and if he walked in faithfulness, long life as well. God met him in this strange place.

Life is so sterile in the modern West. Even if we consider Solomon's practice of sacrificing on the high places misguided, it seems to me that there was something real in this ubiquitous ancient human practice. The smell of blood and the sounds of death reek of reality. It reminds me of C. S. Lewis' novel Till We Have Faces, which is a modern rendition of the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. The older sister Orual can't stand what she calls the smell of holiness every time she enters the house of the goddess, where there is continuous sacrifice taking place. Something deep within us resonates with this brokenness...we understand the smell of holiness.

"Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" Our sterile Western theology has difficulty with sacrifice. We can't get our collective minds around the concept because it is not a part of our shared experience. We've tried to ignore our own brokenness by hiding from blood and death. We turn away from reality...we pinch our nose at the smell of holiness...we cover our ears at the cries of brokenness. Even in our version of Christianity it is all clean and positive and nice - a journey without sacrifice, a holiness without the spilling of blood. The wisdom of the Apostles says this cannot be...we've lost touch with that wisdom. We are confronted by the Paschal Lamb.

What strikes me most in the resurrection scenes are the wounds of His crucifixion. Jesus carries with Him the scars of sacrifice. He is the slain Lamb who sits on the throne and the Lion of Judah. He is worthy to open the scroll. He has the smell of holiness all over. He has opened the way of life for us by the tearing of His flesh. Our only hope for genuine peace...our only hope to become an authentic reflection of the Kingdom is to understand the depth of brokenness and chaos. Then we might open our hearts to actually eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lamb, following the way that He made for us to experience real life.



Until next time - Blessing in Christ ~ RLS