What does UR add to this (Easter) weekend?

[TotalVictory]

This is a weekend pregnant with meaning for many in the world of Christians and Jews. I’m just wondering if we in the UR community have anything special to add to this great time of spiritual depth??

Never really thought about this before (I’m an emerging Universalist) but it seems if this sacred time speaks to and for any one group, is should speak doubly so for we who honor the idea of Universal Restoration.

That the Christ story itself belongs to no one in particular (that is, it just happened! and all who ponder it stand to be blessed by it’s astonishing impact) immediately whispers to me of it’s Universal intent. That is, God did not act in this world this way so that the various sects and denominations and subcultures and ideologies could take shape. He DID it and we are witness to it. As such, it belongs to ALL of us; believer and skeptic and infidel (if any are around here…) alike. It is common “property” so-to-speak. No one “owns” history – and is this history or WHAT??

Almighty God has COME and lived amongst us and WE killed Him!! Our killing was rather impotent though; wouldn’t you say?? What; kill the very Son of God? We must be kidding, yet that’s exactly what we did. (Important for us to identify with the killers of Christ; no?)

So the despair and failure of the Friday crucifixion, then the somber Sabbath rest in the tomb, then the Glorious rising again of our Lord on Sunday morning surely compel conclusions for the believer in UR.

I ask then, what does this weekend hold for you who grasp the wonder and beauty of the wondrous truth of Universal Restoration?

TotalVictory
Bobx3

[stellar_renegade]

Almighty God has COME and lived amongst us and WE killed Him!! Our killing was rather impotent though; wouldn’t you say?? What; kill the very Son of God? We must be kidding, yet that’s exactly what we did. (Important for us to identify with the killers of Christ; no?)

Yes, as we can even see in the gospels that everyone had their own part in his death. No one prevented it from happening, not even He Himself. But of course it was their faithlessness that crucified Him. The religious leaders were malevolently conspiring, the gentile world was ignorantly complicit, the public was faithlessly swayed, the disciples fled in fear. The greatest guilt was upon the religious leaders, of course, but no one was ultimately innocent. And who can claim innocence from one of those great faults? Who can say they have never put truth, purity, peace, goodness or love to an untimely death?

And you’re exactly right; no one owns this event. Everyone was absolutely bewildered by this mysterious person whom constantly defied expectations, just as He continues to elude our imagination even now. I wonder what it would be like if He were to walk the earth again. It was God’s will that He come to make a sacrifice of Himself, not ours. How dare we act as if we know what He is all about! And yet we say we wouldn’t dare claim to be as great as the apostles, who themselves could not say they were of any authority over God’s own ways. Our human arrogance is amazing, is it not?

But no, there is nothing greater than His redemption (His almighty love invading this world). We can’t limit it to this or that group of people. And He not only came to redeem all humans, but all of creation itself! For,

He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.

And so the entire world, in Him, has died and come back to life.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Anytime I want to feel peace about what God has already done in Him, I just think of the peaceful angels gloriously rejoicing over His work as if it were already completed, singing glad tidings for all the people to humble shepherds on the side of the hill, announcing the arrival of the Immanuel, “God with us.”

There’s nothing more I can add to that. Thanks for a wonderful post.

[JeffA]

The phrase ‘snatching victory from the jaws of defeat’ springs to mind here.

We few non-believers don’t have much to offer the rest of you guys at this time of year so I’ll just pop in another link to my song about Jesus and the Disciples in the Garden for those who haven’t heard it

Jeff’s Easter song

[firstborn888]

Almighty God has COME and lived amongst us and WE killed Him!! Our killing was rather impotent though; wouldn’t you say?? What; kill the very Son of God? We must be kidding, yet that’s exactly what we did. (Important for us to identify with the killers of Christ; no?)

Yes, as we can even see in the gospels that everyone had their own part in his death. No one prevented it from happening, not even He Himself.

Nor did He stop it from happening to all humankind, correct?

I think it’s important to see that Jesus death represents all of mankind (crown of thorns = mental/emotional anguish. Spear in side = broken hearted/torn lives. Nails in hands = bad deeds. Nails in feet = walk through the valley of the shadow of death - etc etc).

The good news is that even as all have tasted of this death, all will taste of the life. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly”.

I believe this is the real message of the resurrection.

Love and peace to all.