Happy Easter!

As a person who considers herself  "Plain-wrap Christian"  ( meaning I follow the belief in a rather generic way) I have been thinking about the meaning of Easter this morning.

Easter, not Christmas, is the center of the faith. It is the core of Christian belief that Christ died and rose again.  On the surface, I suppose, such belief is silly but there it is.  The nature of faith is to believe, to take a "leap of faith" and believe. So, on this Easter Sunday, I am thinking not about Jesus, but Judas.  We are all pissed off at Judas.  His very name has come to mean a traitor or a turncoat. A "Judas Goat" is a goat the herds other animals to slaughter.    Judas is the focus of enmity in the Christian religion, but I have been thinking about him.  IF we believe that God sent Jesus to cleanse the world of sin; we call him "the lamb of God" after all, referring to the imagery of the traditional sacrificial lamb, then Judas was acting as an instrument of God.   Someone had to do it.  Can you imagine what that must have felt like for Judas.  I remember one school of thought is that Jesus PICKED Judas to do it; Judas was supposed to have been his closest Disciple.  Still, we blame Judas; when if we follow the logic, we should be grateful to him.  He was the catalyst that began the salvation that is the basis of Christian faith.

For that matter, I have often heard "the Jews killed Jesus"  Nope. It was the Romans.  They were trying to stop revolutions in their Empire and they did so by killing off anyone who might be a threat.  Sure, when Pontious Pilate offered Jesus or Barabas, the crowd wanted Barabas.  He must have been better connected in the underground.  Again, if we believe that this is all part of God's plan, how can we be angry about it?

So today, if you are Christian, think about the meaning of this, our most "holy" day as you hide your eggs and chomp chocolate bunnies.  Somewhere along the line, they incorporated pagan Spring symbols in the holiday ( as they usually did).  I will celebrate a day with friends and family, I've got the traditional feast planned . Let me know if you want to stop by!  As my mom used to say "we can always throw another potato in the pot."