No Good Friday

"There is no healing of memory until the memory itself is exposed, and exposed as a wound, a loss.  Yet this must equally happen without its reappearing as a threat (...) this is an indispensable aspect of the process of restoration which resurrection involves.  The word of forgiveness is not audible for the one who has not 'turned' to his or her past; and the degree to which an unreal or neutralized memory has come to dominate is the degree to which forgiveness is difficult."

Rowan Williams, "Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel"

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Dear Kate,

Why does Jesus have to die?  What difference does it make that he "lives again"?

I realize I'm trying to start a conversation in the worst possible way.  If you are not a believer you would probably find me stupid, wasting your perfectly good time on a very good Friday; if you are a believer you're very likely calling me a dick already for luring you into a theological rabbit-hole probably to sound smarter or holier or both.  Stumbling block or foolishness, the choices have always been there.

Of course we could all answer the questions, those two, we Christians.  And since we (or someone else on our behalf) can give honest-to-god answers to them why should we continue to probe and prod, like that notoriously ignominious fingerer?  It's a done deal, the death, the resurrection, the intellectual matter settled, sound logic soundly worked out.  Now just live with it, be "faithful" and stop being a pest.

Maybe what I really wanted to ask is just that, that I do not know how to "live with it."

Here I am not even trying to raise the more academic questions such as the reliability of the Biblical narratives or the formulation of doctrines, even though by doing so it'll do us good to expose our poverty in understanding and living into (not with) the story of Jesus' dying and living again. (For example, if a preacher on Easter Sunday is to focus on convincing the congregation of the reliability of the Paschal account, he might have assumed the purpose of Jesus' resurrection is to prove that God is good and trustworthy because He can pull off a supernatural act.)  But, no, I am not going there.  We have not the common vocabulary in this conversation to go there at all.

I am taking a step back to concede to the assumptions of the most basic understanding of how Easter "works,"  and wondering how the risen Jesus with that particular understanding works in us, through us, and out of us.  Today.  This morning.  Now.

I've been working from home for about two weeks now and my work doubled since the beginning.  My kids are also at home and I've asked them early on in this new state of our relatedness if there's anything they would do to, before aspiring to be a "caremonger" to ease the pain of the world, ease the burden of those around them, the closest, loved ones.  Maybe to pick up a chore that they otherwise didn't and wouldn't.  Maybe to offer to, hey, gather around the dinner table on time and without me asking every time help set up four pairs of chopsticks.  Maybe to wake up early enough to greet the sun, smell the flowers, praise the praiseworthy just a little.  It'd be lovely if I can rely on them to while I am busy working chase away the woodpecker(s) that's been working on our house and help this daddy not having to risk his life when the rain comes climbing 15 feet above ground to patch a hole or two.

I can affirm you the intellectual matter was settled, sound logic soundly worked out, and everyone on the same page.

Nothing changed.

Yours, Alex