Crucify Him

"What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?" and they respond, "Crucify him!" -- Matthew 27:22

So I watched a video from Jonathan Pageau. He's a Christian iconographer who studies religious symbols. You can watch the video to get the details, but he is 100% certain the Olympics ceremonies were depicting The Last Supper, not the festival of Dionysus. His insight is really good. It's worth a watch just for the history of the symbols, even if you don't like the story he's telling.

I was thinking about this a bit and some ideas popped in. Let me try to noodle them out.

So what happened in the ceremony? A lesbian took the place of Jesus at the table. She embodied Jesus, the Lord of the Christian tradition. And what happened to the religious community? Angry cries of blasphemy.

Now let's go back to the actual last supper. At the behest of the Pharisees, Jesus was tried, convicted of starting a rebellion and was crucified. And what got the Pharisees so upset? Blasphemy. Claiming to be God. Upsetting the religious system because he was outside their control.

Standard Christian doctrine teaches that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. In essence, he became sin. He embodied the sinner to rebuild the gap between humanity and the divine. By embodying the sinner, Jesus took on the punishment prescribed by the religious system of power, and in so doing, relationship to God was restored.

Now, back to the Olympics. Rather than Jesus embodying.the sinner, the "sinner" embodied Jesus. And the religious system of power shouted, "Crucify them."

It seems we keep going around and around and aren't learning the lesson. The life of Jesus demonstrated what a restored relationship to God looks like. It's laying down your power and loving the sinner. Literally dying for them. Who is the sinner? According to religion, it's anyone who doesn't tow the line of the values they deem good. But by Jesus' definition, a sinner isn't a real thing. Jesus became the sinner and killed the sin, so that all that remains is a child of God. Sinners don't exist anymore.

But we keep trying to bring them back. Anytime we heap judgment on whoever we think is wrong, no matter how right we think we are, we are stringing Jesus back up on the cross and yelling, "Crucify him!" Again and again and again.

Here's the amazing thing about what Jesus taught. He takes it. Over and over. He allows the pharisee to string him up time and time again. Jesus has indescribable love for the lesbian who portrayed him. And with the same amount of compassion, he loves the angry Christian who's boycotting.

Until we get to the place where we truly understand how God views humanity, we'll keep on killing the message that brings love to all people. If you want to bear the name of Christ, you have to stop seeing sinners and start seeing children of God, worthy of all the love in your heart.

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