Thursday night, I had an experience that I'll never forget. I was doing a slideshow presentation in my Introduction to Islam class. It was on a memoir by a guy who had converted from Judaism to Islam, and after he converted, he ran across a group of people who claimed that they had found the true path in Islam. After months of following this group and learning their practices, it turned out that he was actually falling into the trappings of radical Islam. The book, in my view, was simply a memoir of a guy's experience spending a year inside of radical Islam.
However, as I went through slides and presented the information that was given to me, there was an uproar. There are three practicing Muslims in my class. For some reason, they were objecting to what I was presenting. Instead of simply being a transporter of information, I became the mediator of a religion I had no knowledge of besides what the author had written about it. Evidently, the author of the book was using the same brush stroke that the Western media uses to paint a picture of Islam. It was extremely biased, off-based, and wrong. The thing is, I had no idea. I had accepted what the guy had written because I had no foundation to gauge it against. What started as an innocent portrayal of one guy's story ended up being an accusation against true, practicing Muslims who connect with God in ways that I have never.
One of the people sitting in the class during the presentation was the president of the Houston Islamic Center. The first half of the class he gave a lecture on Sufism, which is a beautiful branch of Islam which believes that it's essential to balance the physical with the spiritual, the outward with the inward. It turned out that the author I was presenting about had a bone to pick with Sufism, calling it a "mystical strain of Islam with no religious absolutes." Needless to say, my Muslim friends were not happy with the author's portrayal of the Islam they cherished so deeply, of the God they called their Creator. I didn't know what to do because I was ignorant of real Islam. My classmates opened my eyes to the tension between the picture that I'd been given of Islam, and the real story of Islam. The author was using the most skewed and inaccurate branch of Islam to paint the picture of Islam as a whole.
As I drove to work the next day, I was still thinking about the implications that presentation had on me. I figured out that what happened that night could be translated like this: If I was sitting in a class called Introduction to Christianity, and a Muslim came up to give a presentation on Christianity, I would understand the topic they were presenting. I would know the history, the pillars of faith, and the practices. Let's say the Muslim had no prior understanding of the religion, and the book they did the presentation on was written by Fred Phelps, the pastor of Woodsboro Baptist Church. He goes on to explain Christianity through the eyes of Phelps. To me, this would be a completely inaccurate picture of a beautiful religion that centers around a God who died for us and forgave our sins once and for all. But, through Phelps eyes Christianity is about holding up signs at social events that say "God Hates Fags," and "God Hates America." If I was listening to this Muslim give this presentation, I would feel the need to speak up and say, No! This is not Christianity. This author is completely off course!
Essentially, this is what happened as I was giving my presentation. The class was speaking up for their God and religion. They were saying, No! This is not Islam!
It baffles me how the same thing happens inside of Christianity. The mainstream media (via pulpit, internet, and bookstores) continue painting this picture of a Christianity that requires one to have a password to enter into a relationship with a hidden God. The painting includes Easter Sunday, but not any of the implications behind Sunday, like Good Friday, Maundy Thursday, and the forty days of Lent. Instead, we are given a picture of this God who arrived out of nowhere, died, rose again, and went back to somewhere. Only the truly chosen ones have the ability to figure out how to connect with this God, having the key to unlock the magical door to salvation.
I want to paint a different picture, one that I believe has continued to be painted for 2,000 years but has somehow slipped off in the shadows. It's a picture of freedom. I believe that the implications behind Jesus' death are profound, especially for anyone who struggles with something. I know that there may be a few people who don't struggle with anything, and if I was in those shoes I would not be having this conversation because I wouldn't need God. It turns out though, that I struggle on a daily basis, and the message of Jesus speaks specifically into that tension.
The scriptures say that Jesus died for our sins, that his blood represented the sins of the world - past, present, and future. Before Jesus died, there was a law system set in place for people like me who couldn't seem to do it right. When people messed up, or sinned, there was a system in place that would give specific instructions for "making them right again." The problem was, the law was a Band-Aid. Instead of producing a deep healing of the person's character, the laws would only make them feel better for a short time until the next time it happened. The law was cyclical in providing temporary relief for a permanent problem.
What Jesus did abolished the systems set in place. He took the laws and and the guilt that came with them, and sacrificed himself to them, to death. He took the laws and did what they could not do - he forgave humanity once and for all. No more subscribing to different procedures for different sins. Jesus fulfilled the law, doing what it could never do.
The picture that is often painted in the American church is a death of Jesus that just doesn't finish the job. Though the scriptures say that the law was abolished, we are given a presentation that we are actually the ones who complete the law that Jesus finished. We are the ones who fulfill Christ's death by asking him for forgiveness. We are the ones who pray a prayer and institute salvation in our lives. For the last couple of years, I have been sitting in the classroom, listening to this presentation, and I just can't keep my voice silent any longer. I have to speak up and say, No! This is not what Easter means!
The death of Christ means that we no longer have to do anything to forgive our sins. We don't have to subscribe to any more rituals invoking forgiveness of sins. The death of Christ also means that there is no part of the human condition that God is out of touch with. There is no person on the planet who is excluded from what Christ has done. Regardless of who we are or what we've done, Christ has forgiven us once and for all. We have two options: wake up to this or don't. This brings us back to struggle.
The death of Christ speaks into our struggle for meaning, for life, for freedom. I'm speaking to anyone who struggles with something, and is coming to the end of their rope. You are forgiven and loved by a God who struggled to death. We are dead to sin. There is no amount of work we can do to get rid of the things that are tripping us up. That's a given. However, we are not condemned to a life of guilt from these struggles. We have a God whose death abolished the guilt-producing effects of moral, religious, and philosophical law. We are free from living under the tyranny of our own defects of character. We are free to live under the grace of Jesus. We are free to laugh about our mistakes, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of the one whose blood ran from Calvary.
We have the opportunity to wake up to a God who dwells in us, through the spirit of the one who died on a cross. The Spirit of Christ keeps whispering, Wake up. Wake up friend. I am with you and love you. You have been forgiven once and for all. My grace is enough for you. You are perfect just the way you are.
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