Confronting, Comforting Love

Easter is both troubling and assuring.  All the events leading up to Easter are heading towards the cross and the crucifixion of Jesus.  Jesus, confronting the pride, selfishness and prejudice of the religious leaders makes enemies.  At the same time, he constantly brings comfort to those who are hurting, humble and oppressed. 

So what’s it like for us to come to Easter?  If it’s about Jesus and what he has brought to our world, then I’m thinking that we’ll probably be experiencing both his confronting and comforting love.

What has been our experience with confronting love in the family where we grew up?  Who did the confronting?  Who “ruled the roost” with a stern eye for truth and responsibility?  How did we learn to handle such confrontation?  Were we sneaky, trying to avoid it?  Did we try to shift blame to others?  Did we make up stories?  Did we mope around and feel sorry for ourselves?  Did we take out our anger on brothers, sisters and friends or others?  Of course.  No one likes to be confronted!  But as we grew, we knew we needed parents and teachers, preachers and real friends who would be honest with us for our own good and the good of others.  We learned, more or less, to be more responsible with our time, personal gifts and resources.  We also learned that we would never stop needing to learn and relearn the same principles. 

Jesus chose adults to be his disciples.  They squabbled over who would be the greatest.  They didn’t like it when Jesus let them know that his confrontation with corrupt religious leaders would bring him (and them … if they were able to “bear the cup”) into suffering.  Jesus confronted Peter personally when it came to his “knowing he was right” in opposing Jesus.  And soon thereafter, Peter would deny even knowing Jesus … and in the strongest terms!  And where was Peter while Jesus was being crucified?  Hard to tell.

This is Easter … and confronting love is a part of it.  Think about those things in our life which give us the most pain, the most heartache.  We know that the situation needs to be confronted but, for a variety of reasons, (fear, doubt, denial, etc.) we let it go.  The festering burrows in and our relationships suffer.  We hurt and don’t want to be with certain persons.  With family members, it’s the most painful because lots of events want to bring us together.  And then things turn phony and we get into “survival” mode.  No?  Confronting scares us.  We’d rather play our familiar “role” in the family than stand up, say what it really feels like and work towards a more real, honest, truly loving relationship.  Sigh.  Nah … it’s just not worth it!

Easter says it is.  There’s still hope that through “death” … a crucifixion founded upon a quest for love and reconciliation … a resurrection will come.  Confronting love leads to comforting love.

Oh, please … don’t make me do that!  Seems like it doesn’t really matter how old we are.  Some things just seem impossible.  Just let it go … don’t stir up the mess ‘cause it’ll just get messier.  Know what I mean?

And so we pray this Easter.  We pray that God would confront us with all the junk in our hearts and minds … those things that keep us from being rooted in love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness … and wisdom.  It’s confronting love, after all!  Confronting love is there to give us and those we live with a diagnosis and a treatment plan to help us get better.  And so we pray and meditate to choose those things that will help us and those whom we do need to confront to get better.  It’s a personal thing and also a collective thing … between ourselves and our Lord ... helped by those people, places and written words which serve to make that connection to promote healing.  Confronting love is not there to crush us or guilt us into despair … rather, to lead us and others to repair.  Forgiving grace grapples with real, stinky, dead things … to breathe in new life. 

Easter proclaims that with God, all things are possible!  Might our situation seem as hopeless as a cold, dead, crucified body?  Easter turns evil to live.  And Jesus lives to make it happen.

God living with us: Easter …. Wow.  CONFRONTING AND COMFORTING LOVE …  and JOY!