Contrarian Easter thoughts from a contrarian Easter thinker

It might be easier to explain my own beliefs than to identify with a specific existing dogma.

I believe Jesus is the son of God. He came to the earth and lived a sinless life so that he could fulfill the law God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai several thousand years earlier. I don’t believe he came to the earth to establish a new religion called Christianity. Well, that wasn’t the original plan. He came to the earth to perfect a set of rules or laws God gave to the Jewish people that was intended to share God’s plan for all of humanity through them.

He was killed on the exact day the Jewish people observed the Passover, which was observed to remember the day the Angel of Death killed all the firstborn of Egypt prior to the exodus from that nation.

Here’s another thing I believe. In my experience, people who ignore or denigrate the Bible because they see contradictions between stories of killing and the commandment that clearly says, “Thou shalt not kill” have a shallow and childish understanding of it, and of life in general. As with anything meaningful in life, maturity and patience are required to properly understand what it says, and the context in which it was written. A Curious George story can be understood by a 7-year old in one sitting. A recounting of God condemning the king of Israel because he didn’t commit a holocaust… Not so much.

All that to say, if Christians want to properly memorialize and celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection, doing so on the correct date might be a good start, rather than the second Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox, or whatever metric they use.

A few more things I believe.

The Ten Commandments can be summed up in one sentence: Love God more than anything, and love your neighbor as yourself. If you focus on those two things, everything else will work itself out. It seems people have a fetish for rules and rulers. Either they want to rule others, or they want to be ruled by rulers. Sadly the Bible often becomes a bludgeon to enforce the rules of the rulers over the ruled, rather than a means by which we can have and maintain a healthy relationship with our Creator.

Jesus’ death is one of the greatest motivational stories ever written. Not to say that Jesus was a motivational speaker, nor the archetypal entrepreneur. Rather there is a lot those who employ motivational techniques or entrepreneurial savvy can glean from his life and death.

Take the book of Hebrews ch. 12, v. 2. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Isn’t that the life of the entrepreneur right there? Enduring hardship, sacrifice and self-denial for a time with the belief it will lead to profits and wealth in the future. Despising the shame… Who hasn’t been there? You have a vision and a mission you pursue. You struggle mightily the first few years of your endeavor. Perhaps you even fail miserably. Meanwhile, your peers from college are showing off their newest toys and two week vacations their J.O.B. has allowed them to have. You feel foolish for a moment, then get back to business.

Again, I’m not peddling some heresy that Jesus was a model entrepreneur or anything. I’m saying that there’s a lot from his life (and death) that entrepreneurs can use as inspiration to keep at it.

I realize this is a bit of a contrarian approach to Easter, but then again I’m not reliant on tithes and offerings from the patrons to stay afloat. These are things that have been on my mind for many years, I just haven’t had the occasion to share them until now.

Even so, I’ll probably wake up tomorrow and wish I hadn’t.