EASTER!

Just another pointless day. We bring to it whatever purpose we can. The three days of Christian Easter, like Christmas, have morphed mainly into an exercise of commercial money-making and social entertainment, far removed from any genuine spiritual content. The inner spiritual life requires dedication and hard work, neither of which I am particularly good at. 

Most of us just 'muddle through' day after day, meeting the challenges of life as they arise and coping with them as best we can. But everyone I believe has that secret space of personal faith that hopefully makes them more human and contented. After all as St Paul said, "Godliness and contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into the world, and can take nothing out so be content with food and clothes". 

Of course we think of those that don't even have that! 

Whether Christian or not, and it's obviously lost its appeal to the current time and generation, the Easter story remains poignant and relevant. In a weekend event it manages to encapsulate best and worst in human affairs and actions.

Unjustified hatred, deception, duplicity, treachery, injustice, anger, violence, murder on the one hand; passivity, forgiveness, holiness on the other. 

The human account of events and of the resurrection are convincing in their detail and simplicity, sufficient to initiate a movement of belief that has lasted more than two centuries.

Both on the purely human level it remains a disturbing but rewarding challenge personally, socially and internationally, as we witness the same evil evidenced in the world. 

Easter comes around annually and its message has to be relearned every year.

And so it continues....

Jesus' Seven Last Words:

• “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” — Luke 23:34.
• “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” — Luke 23:43.
• “Woman, behold thy Son." (To the disciple: "Behold thy mother." (John 19:25-27) — 
• About three o'clock, Jesus shouted, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means,
• “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” — Matthew 27: 46
• “I thirst.” — John 19:28
• “It is finished.” — John 19:30
• “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” — Luke 23:46

"What I have written, I have written."

John 19

1 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.
2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,
3 And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.
4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.
5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!
6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto
them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.
7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid;
9 And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.
10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?
11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
13 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
14 And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
15 But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
16 Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.
17 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:
18 Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE
JEWS.
20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
21 Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.
22 Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written."

See also: 

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=easter

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=john+donne

The longer we live, the more we realise that it is the dead who influence our lives more than the living. The longer we live, the more we realise that life is just an aberration and illusion, into which we are locked for a miniscule period of time, the only purpose of which is to strive to do as little harm and and as much good as we are able, and to spend our lives trying to work out what they are. Success can only be gauged by the degree of inner contentment and acceptance of one's circumstance. Yet struggle and suffering are common to all men, mitigated only by faith and stoicism, knowing that all things must pass, and we too. We cannot escape ourselves or the egocentricity it imposes but we must also comprehend how we are just a tiny fraction of human consciousness and part of an incredible web of life that inhabits the earth, both past and present. We have to learn to sublimate our egos, to rise above the material, to enter a transcendent plane, where time and place lose their meaning and we become again what we were before the universe began. In sublimating the transient, we open the door to the eternal, and become better experientially as a result.