Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.
That affirmation and response will resound today, Easter Sunday, and throughout this Easter season. But we dare not forget what was going on in Jesus being condemned and hung on the cross. As I have reflected, two dynamics were operating in the minds and the actions of those who championed his death. One, the deadly poison of hatred, and two, the distorted perception of religion.
Because of what is going on today, especially in our nation, I continue to ponder the first, though the second is blatantly present. The deadly poison of hatred.
Ponder with me. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that distorts reality more than hatred does. It’s a terrible thing. It’s a kind of madness. Once we give way to hatred, we can’t think clearly. We lose control, we can’t see with perspective, and we act irresponsibly. That’s what happened to the Jews as they called for the crucifixion of Jesus. First, they knew that Jesus was a threat to their established religion, they knew that he was a threat to everything they held Holy, so they began to hate him. This was the hatred that turned them into a mad, shrieking crowd who called for Jesus’ death. That was 2000 years ago.
The truth is still the same today. Hatred poisons us and causes us to do things that under ordinary circumstances we would flee from. I never will forget those tumultuous days of racial upheaval in Mississippi, in the late 1950s and the early 60s. It was an upheaval time all over the nation, but I knew it in Mississippi because I was a pastor there. I can still see the twisted faces, flushed red with hot blood. I can still hear the venomous hatred of people who were normally upright, educated, respectable, religious people, as they came together to discuss the stand I was taking in relation to private (Christian) schools to preserve segregation because segregation in public schools was now outlawed.
I, also, will never forget the mob that surrounded St. Paul Church, the leading African American congregation in our city. We had closed a meeting at which a white missionary from South Africa had been speaking against apartheid, that sinful oppressive system in South Africa. Only a few whites had attended the meeting and somehow the establishment thought it was clandestine and subversive. When we left the church, a mob surrounded us, along with three or four police cars with blaring lights. I never will forget the fear in the voice of that black pastor when he called me at midnight. The police chief was in his home harassing him, and demanding the name of every white person that was in attendance at the meeting. The pastor wanted to know if he could give the chief my name.
Hatred poisons us. It distorts perspective and it causes us to do things that we would not do under most circumstances. It is not always blatant and dramatic as my experience in Mississippi. I know people who have been estranged from family members for years because of hatred. I’ve seen people dry up and become uncaring, calloused people, because somewhere along the way someone hurt them, and, rather than dealing with that hurt redemptively, they allowed it to fester inside and turn into hatred. I even know married couples in which one person in the relationship is emotionally eaten up with hatred because somewhere along the way something was done that needed to be forgiven, forgiveness was not offered, and again that lack of forgiveness grew until it became poison to the entire relationship.
Learn this lesson well today – hatred will poison us, and it will destroy all that we hold Holy. I see it happening in our nation. It begins as somewhat mundane political divisions, but it evolves and we are seeing expressions of hatred over the issues of immigration, voting systems in states, and responses to Covid-19.
No wonder Jesus said, don’t let the sun go down on your wrath. He knew what harbored hatred can do to us. We can be ardent in our commitments, but we don’t have to diminish any person who has other ideas, and we certainly don’t have to hate.
Whether you make the acclamation, Christ is risen!….or the response, He is risen indeed! Remember you are affirming the fact that Jesus is LORD, and he is the LORD OF LOVE.
The inspirational image below, on my website, was taken by Kerry Peeples.