Today God Died for Us

Father in Heaven, on this day no words could possibly be good enough to describe your love for us. Use my words and our meditations to help us return that gift of love to you and to your creation. Amen.


Today we are celebrating the death of our saviour.

About two thousand years ago people just like you and I betrayed him, accused him, tried him, condemned him, and executed him. We are no better or worse, no more or less deserving than those who did this. They were ordinary people, faced with ordinary choices, under ordinary pressures. I could just as easily be one of those calling for his death. So could you.

Let’s just imagine for a moment if Jesus were to come today. First he would show that he understood our system of government. He would become a respected teacher in our churches. He would show a depth of knowledge and wisdom which was well beyond his years.

As time went on he would find a back way into our political system. Maybe he would found a new party. He might call it the People for Open and Organized Reform, or the P.O.O.R. party. His party would gain popularity quickly among non-traditional voters. Within a couple of years the major parties would be very worried.

At the same time he would be gaining respect among the religious masses. He would avoid any position which put him under the authority of any church leaders. He would eventually start teaching about the shortcomings of the church leaders themselves. They would get very worried.

Next he would start telling us that we aren’t doing enough for the poor and disadvantaged. He might say that we have been given enough time to address poverty and we haven’t done it. If elected to office he would see that a year of Jubilee would be declared in law. Everything that anyone owes anyone else will be automatically forgiven. Also, anyone who can’t afford the necessities (which he would define) will have them provided through higher taxes. Now those in financial power are worried.

Pretty much everyone has some debt so we might like the Jubilee. But unfortunately the banks who hold most of this debt would fail taking any savings we might have (including retirement savings) with them. Now we are worried.

Long before it got to this point, our society would find a way to silence him. The political parties would find some way to discredit the P.O.O.R. party. The church leaders would ban him from preaching in their churches. The financial heavyweights would block any commercials he might produce by threatening to pull their advertising. And we would back it all to save our way of life.

We might not actually put him to death but we would put him in a little box where we could safely ignore him. We haven’t learned much since the first time we killed our saviour. So why is today Good?


Today God died for us!


Today is not about how good we are. Today is about the grace of God.

We did nothing to deserve God’s sacrifice for us. Nothing we can do will make us deserving of that sacrifice.

Today our God chose to die so that we could find our way back to God.

God, who was born into the world from a woman, understands what it means to be limited by humanity.

God, who walked among us as a human, understands that we will stray.

God, died a human death, has called us back to him.

God, who defeated death, shows us the way.

Thanks be to God.