resurrection was delivered into the hands of a single woman like. before anyone else, jesus and his wildfire blood came to her to tell her that yes, these miracles do happen, this future isn’t empty, you are saved, you are saved now and forever.
and who was she? mary, from a village by the sea. a girl who grew up singing saltwater hymns while sickness burned in her body. when the messy-haired, sunlight-boned wanderer burst into town with his pack of young rebels, she looked god right in his human eyes and said, “i’m not afraid. heal me.” she watched the romans kill him slowly, and she wept, and she ached, and she spent two nights sitting in the dirt outside the tomb, whispering prayers to the stars like it might be worth something, anything, everything. and it was.
and we couldn’t believe that christ would want to trust a woman before anyone else, so we wrote her down as a sinner and a person of bad character, even though she was neither. we made her name synonymous with prostitution, even though there’s no biblical evidence to support that. history likes to pretend she had little power but without her there would be no witness to the news.
a young woman is the mortal catalyst for one of the biggest turning points in christian theology! a young woman who runs to other women first! that’s who christ placed his trust in above everyone else to bear the sight of the resurrection. isn’t that spectacular?
Category: Uncategorized
Why is it that people who criticize overtly religious people for being gullible follower types almost always jump uncritically onto whatever 4th century (at earliest) manuscript says Jesus had a wife or rode a motorcycle or whatever
“To God, love is not an emotion but a self-offering.”
~
Fr. Matta El-Meskeen
(Art: Behold the Lamb of God, by Chris Koelle)
we have no sign of how christ treated his betrayer on a daily basis, you know. we do know he was trusted with money, and that they had no idea it would be him. when it was said that one of their number would betray their lord, not one of them nodded sagely and said “i knew it, it’s judas.” not one of them.
how easy it would have been for him to put distance there, to just step away, to lessen the pain and the sting every time judas looked at him. but no. no, not christ. it was always, always, always love.
there is constant agony over the knowledge that jesus CHOSE him. a crowd, a following, all of israel to chose to be one of his closest friends, and jesus looked at the multitude and met the eyes of the one with a greedy heart and jealous mind and he said “that one.” he looked at his betrayer, the one who would commit the Sin of Sins, and he smiled and he said “father, give him to me.”
“let him be mine.”
“i choose death. i choose pain. i choose to let this one know my heart before he breaks it.”
he could have been delivered up another way. someone else could have told the priests — someone could have seen the group and known and ran to earn payment. someone who was unaffiliated, whom they wouldn’t have known and been so hurt by.
but no. no, jesus looked at him and loved him.
god made the job harder in no physical manner, only with love. and so no one has ever, i think, broken the lord’s heart so thoroughly as judas. because he let the serpent into the nest and made it comfortable, walked toward the hungry lion with welcoming arms.
in the end, it was also the story of us, betraying him who we had no reason to betray, and suffering the burden for it when we refused his grace. our redemption in the arms of him whom we worst offended. “while we were yet sinners”
judas is the story of grace overflowing, cascading, washing over us all. jesus pulled him into dances, had inside jokes, sat next to him at meals, ruffled his hair in the mornings, winked at him during sermons. judas was no outcast — he was in jesus’ close circle, his family. jesus stayed up late sometimes with him and talked about stars while the other disciples slept around the fire. they had dialogue about old testament verses and their meaning, swapped stories of their childhoods, kissed each others’ mothers on the cheek. judas heard his sermons and likely had comments, questions, ideas, adorations. (because jesus chose to lead him but judas chose to follow) they were blood brothers, until judas shed jesus’ blood, sold his brother for silver, did not listen when all the earth cried out. (all creation, all eternity building to this climax) (cain and abel) (joseph and judah) (yeshua and judas) (we’ve heard this before, we know how it ends don’t we, god bring the plot twist or avert our eyes)
most powerful of all, when christ washed his feet. kneeling, wrapped in a towel, and silently, gently, lovingly he lifting the feet of his betrayer to intimately clean them.
“i knew it, it was judas” never came from any of their mouths, not even from the mouth of he who knew. instead he smiled, and the kiss was only expected. “i knew it, it was judas” “father let him be mine”
“i choose judas”
A few tiny spells I’ve put together recently:
- Spin a fidget spinner clockwise to try to hurry time up, such as when you’re waiting for something or trying to get past an uncomfortable thing. Spin it counter clockwise to slow time down a little, like if you’re late for something or you want to preserve a moment a bit longer.
- If you have a long umbrella, rhythmically tap it on the ground slowly to summon rain. Speed it up to turn that rain into a storm.
- Rock candy is hella easy to imbue with the effects of an actual crystal. And then you get a delicious snack that puts that effect inside you for about a day.
- If you have to be on a plane, bring along ear plugs or earbuds. From there it’s very easy to drop into a trance state and cast a simple spell for the flight to go smoothly. The more you can sort of mentally sync the music’s flow to the world around you, the more potent the effect!
roah:
No you don’t understand how frustrated I am that we always depicted the Apostles as old men, especially when it comes to during-Jesus-alive stuff.
They were probably late teens to early 20s, given the time and the description and some Biblical passages.
They were not ancient old men with long beards and wrinkles at the Last Supper.
They were young adult rebels with a cause.
where my punk-rock apostles at
I can’t remember where, but the bible says that Jesus was the only one who was old enough to pay the temple tax required by Jewish law, none of the disciples had hit that age. A quick google tells me that Jewish men pay it from the age of 20 – all of the disciples were teenagers.
Why this is possible:
- Probaly they were all underage except for Peter. In Exodus 30:14-15, Jewish law states that every male over the age of 20 is to pay a half-shekel as census offering when they visit the temple of God. In Matthew 17:24-27, Jesus instructs Peter to “fish up” this tax. Peter finds a shekel in the mouth of the fish he catches; enough to pay the tax for two men, himself and Jesus. You could conclude that the others were underage and did not need to pay.
- In Matthew 11:25, Luke 10:21, and John 13:33, Jesus calls his disciples little children .
- We learn that Peter had a wife when Jesus healed his mother-in-law. In those ancient times, a Jewish man receives a wife after the age of 18. Again, no other disciples’ wives are mentioned, so they are unmarried and probably under 18.
- Jewish children began intensive study at young ages, but education for most concluded by age 15. For those bright (or wealthy) enough, higher education consisted of studying under a local rabbi. If they didn’t find a rabbi that accepted them as a student then they entered the workforce by their mid teens.
The disciples, already working-men, must have been rejected by other rabbis when Jesus hand-picked them for further education as his disciples.
In light of this, a younger age is more probable than older. A youth would be in the mindset of continuing his education. A man over 30 leaving his trade to follow a rabbi would be counter-cultural , although not impossible.- The behavior of the disciples, as detailed in the gospels, fits well with the zealous nature and foolishness of adolescence. Picture a gang of teens instead of work-hardened men in the boat when the storm hit, fear-stricken and waking up Jesus for help. The forgetful and distracted nature of youth helps me understand how they could hear Jesus say he would die and come back to life, yet act as they did when these things happened.
When we age them under twenty, we can understand Jesus’ patience with them, his low expectations of their behavior, and his teaching style.so punk rock
This changed my life.
sorry but i’m laughing as i imagine them dabbing over some simple joke while jesus looks just tired and deadpan questions some of his life choices
The things they don’t teach you in Catholic school.
The Kingdom: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because we are rich or worthy or good, but because we are hungry.
Rachel Held Evans (via lupus-cordis)
…and I feel as though I am waiting for something new and strange which will burn the unburnt side of my soul.
Kahlil Gibran, in a letter to Mary Haskell, from Beloved Prophet: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell, and her private journal
(via al-hindiyya)
(via al-hindiyya)
bennu rising 