Project 52 Week 12
Both the cross and the tomb are empty on Easter. That's the way most of the stories go and the way every church I have ever been portrays Easter. An important message, if you fully realize and understand the meaning.
The cross being empty means that someone was once on it. The tomb being empty means someone was in it. Context is key. Otherwise it is simply unused.
But the question that weighs heavy on my mind, as we are still a month away from lent let alone Easter is why would that matter to someone if they do not believe they are a sinner? Until someone comes to the realization that they are lost, broken, in need of saving, why would they care that the cross and the tomb once held someone who suffered and died to save them? Until we are confronted by the need for a savior the fact that we have one means nothing.
I have a lot of what I call "church angst." I believe the modern Christian Church is wishy washy in their beliefs and that we do not wrestle with the fact that all are welcome at God's table and the contradiction that we are to be set apart from the rest of the world the way we ought to. I think that the modern Christian church has failed to teach the younger generations how to wrestle with the fact that we are all lost and fallen and therefore in desperate need of a savior and that when we were confronted with difficult questions that did not have simple answers we were told, "this is just the way it is."
No wonder we are so lost.
What can Easter and the cross possibly mean as a moment of redemption and celebration if we do not believe we need it?
Worst of all, I don't have the faintest inkling of an answer. Just a jumble of thoughts burning in my mind as I try to discern my own direction and what those emptinesses mean.