Right now, fifteen million Jews and over two billion Christians are celebrating divine miracles, celebrations of freedom and life as gifts from God. And I am reflecting on my own captivity and release, and the hope of resurrection, not just at my eventual death, but the taking up of life again here and now, while I am still breathing.
Two Stories of Freedom
The Jews were enslaved in Egypt for over two hundred years. To free them, the story goes, God sent ten plagues to humble Pharaoh, and the last was the death of the firstborn. The Israelites painted their doors with lamb's blood so that death would pass over their homes, and led by Moses, they escaped into freedom. Thirteen centuries later, Jesus was unjustly tried, tortured, and crucified, and on the third day took his life up again. A third of the world believes that because He lives, we can live again too.
I Have Been in Bondage Before
I have been in bondage before. I am sometimes still a captive, of addiction, depression, anxiety, and pain, some of it my own doing and some of it the result of other people's choices. I have been wrongly accused and handed consequences that made parts of me die. I am not writing this from somewhere above the struggle. I am writing it from inside the same fight you are in.
But I believe we can find life and freedom again, and live in the peace that comes from knowing there is far more going on here than taxes and exes and ballgames and noise. More than politics and problems and pain. There is a deeper current running underneath all of it, and a man can learn to live in that current instead of drowning in the surface chop.
Maybe, though, freedom asks something of us. Maybe we have to perform some rituals. Find and follow a leader. Die to old ways. Give up the ghost of self absorption that keeps us small. Maybe our lives can be resurrected, right here and now, if we will just roll away the stones that seal us in our graves of greed and resentment. Maybe we only have to listen, and believe. Maybe we can be free. Maybe we can live again. I believe all of it, on my best days and my worst ones.