An Easter Story that Isn't What You Think

Next week I'm going to post something ridiculous and I think you're going to like it. But because this week is little more somber, I'm not going to write about Insects, or Donuts, or Penguins that Attack , or about the time my dad put put catfish in my childhood swimming pool.

I'll make it up to you next week, I promise.

You see, this blog was born on a Good Friday eight years ago, and that happens to be this week, so its a good chance to revisit why this blog is here. Even if Good Friday posts aren't usually your thing, I hope you'll hang with me for a second, because the point (I promise, I'll get to one eventually) is more universal than it might first appear.

You might relate to my story, if you keep going. And if you don't, there's a money-back guarantee.

The point of the blog is not a Bible story, at least in the usual sense, but it is a story about who I would be if I were a character in the Bible. I'm pretty sure I would be the thief being crucified beside Jesus who was making fun of him while on the cross on Good Friday.

And that's not entirely a bad thing.

It always strikes me that the thieves being crucified beside Jesus hurl insults at him along with the jeering crowd in the gospels' retelling. The motivation of the criminals is not immediately clear, as they were suffering the exact same punishment that they were making fun of Jesus for enduring, and in no position to look down on the person beside them.

Whatever the first century equivalent of the pot calling the kettle black was, this was it.

The motivations for everyone else at the scene was more clear.

The religious leaders of the day had Jesus arrested and accused of insurrection in order to protect their positions in power. The political leaders of the day had Jesus crucified, in between two convicted criminals, to protect their own grip on political power against the following of a potential revolutionary. Roman soldiers performed the execution, because that was their job.

The government and religious leaders had reason to resent and mock Jesus for his following and the threat to their power it represented. The soldiers wanted to show their superiority to break the spirit of those who might resist. The spectators wanted a show, and there was this guy who claimed to be a king of some sort providing a disappointing amount of resistance.

The thing that's more surprising, and the part I relate to, is that two criminals beside Jesus, suffering the exact same fate and in no position to condescend, started insulting him too, mid-execution. It's quite possibly the weakest basis for trash talk in recorded history.

Their motivation was a little less obvious, but I have a theory. It was about what they were feeling at that moment in their lives, because I sometimes feel it to.

Imagine how you'd feel if you were sentenced to be executed in a judicial system that offered no lawyer and no real shot at appeal. Maybe you'd even been framed or falsely accused to begin with, but now you've been sentenced to die. There's no way out, and your about to die an excruciating death.

On your execution day, you get word that a reputed miracle worker is set to be executed right beside you. For the first time since your conviction, you have a ray of hope. Maybe this guy is the real deal and will smite all of the authorities trying to kill you. Or maybe he'll cause an earthquake or a windstorm that will scatter the crowd and allow all of you to run free. Maybe, if you're lucky, he'll just snap his fingers and teleport all of you to a nice island destination where the drinks are flowing and no one is trying to murder you.

Wouldn't that be nice? You've found a way out of your troubles!

If it's possible to be excited on the day of one's execution, maybe the two convicts were. Maybe they were hoping not only for freedom from their current bondage, but for a new start and a better life on the other side of their predicament than they had before. If they were guilty of their accused crimes, maybe whatever factors that had caused them to commit them would be resolved on the other side of the upcoming miracle.

Then they were taken to the hill alongside the miracle worker, who strangely wasn't even trying to rescue himself, much less the other criminals. I can only imagine the disappointment on the down side of that roller coaster. Maybe the first conversation went something like this.

"Alright, Jesus, do your thing! Show them what you got! This is going to be great!"
"Jesus? Come on, any time now?"
"I'm really suffering here, what are you waiting on?"
"Are you really not going to do anything? I'm dying here! Are you even capable of doing anything?
"Screw you, Jesus. You call yourself God, but you're a liar and I can't trust anything you ever said. You are a fraud and you never even tried to help me. It was stupid of me to even think you could."

 That monologue looks really familiar to me, because I have it in my life all the time.

Maybe it looks familiar to you too.

Things are not working out the way you planned. The lifeboat that was coming turned around and went back to the dock. It wasn't supposed to be this way, and life seems unfair.

Maybe you prayed a prayer that God isn't answering. Or even if you're not the praying type, maybe like the thieves on the cross, you can still relate to putting your hope in something that didn't work out like you'd hoped and now the path forward seems dark.

Our sense of fairness tells us that problems are supposed to be temporary and if we wait long enough or work hard enough, anything can be overcome. Life tells us otherwise. The bills go up. The friend moves away. The disease can't be healed and no amount of hard work can make it go away.

Our sense of loyalty tells us that the close relationship will return to its happier days, the job will get better, or that a loved one will come through, but reality sees you tired and lonely.

For some of us, our sense of faith tells us that there's hope on the other side of our struggle and we'll see the reason for the pain when we get there. The hole in our heart from the loss of someone close to you disagrees.

The thieves on the cross lashed out because they were disappointed. I get that, because sometimes I am too.

But this story doesn't end in disappointment, at least not completely.

There's no record that Jesus ever responded to the insults of the other criminals, but there is eventually a different kind of conversation. One of criminals hears Jesus forgive those who persecuted him and offer love to those in the crowd, even during his suffering. He has a realization that his own life's should have been larger than himself.

Maybe had he spent more time showing love to others and less energy taking care of himself his entire life would have turned out differently.  Maybe had he lived that way, he wouldn't be in the spot he was in. Maybe the example of love and self sacrifice was more important than his own hopes for comfort. In fact, maybe there is no "maybe" about it.

One thief, the text records, has this kind of revelation with his closing breaths, and makes amends with the miracle worker who had initially disappointed him. The other dies without further mention, apparently taunting away until the end.

I don't think these two contrasts are a literary accident. We can choose to be either. They both suffered the same disappointing fate at the end, sadly, but the one who stopped obsessing about his own troubles to think about others at least got a moment of peace and a hope of better things to come. He didn't get a release from the pain he was suffering, but he at least found a way to make his life be defined by something else more important.

Maybe that's the lesson in the story for us.

I don't know what you're going through, but I know I didn't sign up for multiple sclerosis, and that God didn't answer my prayers to have anything else. But in the moments when I start to get frustrated that I get tired all the time, that the weak muscles in my broken leg won't allow it to heal, or that the stabbing pains keep coming, I try to remember to look past my own problems, at least with my one eye that MS hasn't taken away.

That's what the thief on the cross did, and his story encourages me, even if it didn't end exactly the way he wanted it to. No matter how my story ends, I hope I can offer some encouragement to every else with me along the way.

We might not control whether God answers prayers, but sometimes our story can more powerful if He doesn't.

Just like it was for the thief on the cross.

Attack of the Donuts

He was lurking, waiting for me the moment I entered the front door of my office building. It was as though it were my birthday and he was herding me to my surprise party.

“We have donuts and coffee! Right this way! Come and get some.”

I love the taste of donuts (and also their more sophisticated cousin, doughnuts), which is why my soul shatters a little every time this happens. I’m not allowed to eat things like donuts anymore. To keep my MS under control, I get about five grams of saturated fat a day, which is roughly one serving of dark meat chicken. A single donut probably has 237,000 grams. 

“Thanks, I’ll just take some coffee.”

He leads me into the break room, practically pulling me along with the force of his eagerness.

“We have chocolate filled donuts, and regular. And also ones with custard. Just take your pick!”

“And coffee?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll pour you some.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“We’re just trying to improve morale with the federal shutdown and everything.”

“That’s nice.”

I was hoping he would just show me my options and walk away.  I didn’t want to break his spirit by turning down his  well intentioned treat. But it was clearly not to be.

I am one of the few employees in my building who doesn’t work on the same prison schedule as the institutions we serve, where all the morning shift employees arrive at 6:00 a.m. An array of donuts still lingered on the table, and by the time I got there at 8:00, I was among the last targets left. I was either going to have to take a donut and throw it away when I got upstairs or explain my weird diet, for the 527,000^th time, to a relative stranger, who would then immediately feel bad for having tried to nice to me. 

This is my daily life. 

Yesterday it was a minister at my church who seemed to take it as a personal affront that I didn’t have one of her frosted cookies. Last week a waiter at a party gave me a dirty look when I changed my mind about an appetizer he was walking around with after I realized it had red meat. The week before there was birthday cake to celebrate a co-worker’s birthday in my division, where everyone has heard me explain why I can’t have cake at least once a month for the last 15 months but still responds in shock and awe when I turn down a piece that’s already been cut for me.   

The worst part is not even that I have to turn down the junk food, it’s people’s reactions when I do. 

“Why not? You’re so skinny!” is a popular refrain. Of course, I already know that I know I’m skinny. I’d rather be less so, in fact, but MS disagrees and we argue about this frequently. I’d also really like that donut, but not quite as much as I’d like the use of my legs. 

I don’t like to tell people I can’t eat what they’ve offered because I have MS. Sometimes it makes them feel bad for having asked. Other times people are visibly jarred and things become awkward. Occasionally, I then get asked my whole life story when all I really want is to decline that donut and get to the bathroom to pee, because, hey, I have MS and can’t hold it very long. 

But most often, revealing my diagnosis to a stranger leads to trail of comments to which I’d rather not have to respond. The classic line those of us who are still walking upright hear is “you don’t look like you have MS?,” as though I decided to make up my nerve pain, fatigue, and partial blindness as a fun prank. "You're right," I want to say, "perhaps I just need a V-8." 

When I turn down junk food in public settings, I also tend to get questioned about my research. 

“Well, I have a cousin with MS who just eats whatever,” I hear sometimes. “You’ve also told me that your cousin is paralyzed,” I think in my head, but respond with something slightly more civil, about the latest research and it being a snowflake disease that effects everyone differently. Other people are skeptical and aggressively demand that I to explain the science of how saturated fat, dairy, red meat, and possibly pork, gluten and most everything else that isn’t a piece of broccoli affect MS, as though without their stamp on my diet is the one piece that's missing from a cure. 

Still others over-apologize for eating those things in front of me, making me feel self conscious for their discomfort. Really, I just wish people would eat what they want to eat, while letting me do the same, and not make a big fuss about it all. 

But that’s not likely to happen, especially not at my office, where Mr. Donut Guy’s eyes bearing into my soul. 

I reluctantly took a donut with sprinkles, intending to throw it away when I get to my office. I slink away thinking the interaction was kind of weird, but anxious to get into the confines of my own office where I can do my own thing and people will leave me alone.  

When I get there, I see something wedged between my closed door and the door handle, with napkins stuffed on each side. 

Someone, it seems, had grabbed a donut for me and placed it on my door.