They Say it's Easter....

Yes, today is Easter Sunday!! An incredible day, celebrating one of the biggest days in the history of Christianity. I say it's one of the biggest, because Christmas is the other biggest...you can't have one without the other, it just so happens.

But, it got me to thinking...I remembered someone asking why we wear crosses instead of the tomb with the stone rolled away, even though it's the resurrection we celebrate the most. Great question. My answer had been, initially, that it's because the cross is where our sins died. I guess you could say that's still my answer.

The point of Jesus dying on the cross was to be the ultimate sacrifice. A sacrifice, in Jewish culture, was a lamb taken to the altar to be slaughtered, in place of your sins. So, Jesus was just that. He just wasn't taken to an altar; rather, to a cross. On this cross, He bore all of our sins, and, when He died, so did our sins. Crazy, right?

So, this all seems good and dandy, the sins dying an' all. So, why is the resurrection so important? I mean, seriously, Jesus came to take away our sins. This is most effective way, dying. I mean, nothing's more ultimate than death, right?

Of course, maybe that's why the resurrection is so important.

Jesus dies for our sins, killing our sins, essentially, too. Now that we've got the ultimate sacrifice, what's next? We wouldn't know, would we. Step one complete, step two...???

The resurrection was to show where we go from there. What's the point of doing away with sins when they kept us from nothing? Except, that the resurrection not only showed God's power over death, but it also showed what our sins were keeping us from. They were keeping us from life.

So both the cross and the empty tomb, are equally important. The cross to remind us that Jesus died for our sins, giving us His life, and the empty tomb to remind us that we get life after that. Hm. Life after Death....eternal life after physical death....spiritual life after spiritual death...should we choose it. Sorry, tangent.

Fascinating, right? So, why wear the crosses instead of the empty tombs? I'd say as a reminder, perhaps. A reminder that our sins are dead and conquered. And, with them, our old selves died, too. We are dead to our sins. Alive in Christ. Alive because of Christ. Alive because of a life given to us by His death.

Easter is great.

In Which I Speak on a Controversial Subject. More or Less.

I was recently reminded of feminists. Granted, this opening sentence stinks. I just need to get this out, though. Because, I'm pretty sure that the work of a feminist is a work against herself. How so?

Lemme 'splain. A feminist, if I understand correctly, is a woman who believe that she, and other women, aren't being treated fairly. You know, equality and all that. So, she sets out to prove to the world, through new equality laws and such, that we women aren't to be treated so unfairly. We're just as good as men, the feminist thinks, at whatever they do   if not better. We aren't helpless, we can take care of ourselves.

This sounds all good and noble, this war cry - if you will - of independence, this call for women to get better treatment, more respect, and whatever else she, the feminist, deems necessary for a woman to stand on her own two feet. Yes, noble. Noble sounding.


The thing is, when she says these things, that a woman isn't treated fairly, is looked down upon, she is openly - though maybe not purposefully - admitting that she once believed a lie that said she was inadequate. That, perhaps, she should have been born a man. Yet, she had a strong grip on her femininity (which is, in itself, wonderful), so she turns these initial thoughts toward, what she perceived as, unfair treatment towards women.

In essence, feminism is saying that women are treated unfairly. Yes, there are some cases, in some cultures - modern or ancient - in which women are treated so. Yet, in the cases in which they are not - for instance, as a generalization, woman can do very little, while a man can do very much in the world - the lie seeps through.

One says such a sentence, and, if others catch on, they believe it. In believing this, they soon get themselves caught up in thinking that they have no rights and act in such a manner. It is similar to how a teenager hears that they are simply a rebellious soul and acts upon it, or that a little child hears that they will never be a good artist from a peer or older sibling and stops drawing all together.

Words are such funny things. Sticks and stones may break my bones...but words will do so much more damage.

What have we discovered so far? They (women/feminists) heard the lie (woman can do little), they believed the lie (and felt trapped), and act upon the lie. But, instead of looking at their current standings in culture, just to see how much they can do with the rights they have, they look toward the lie and are drawn further and further into it's dark embrace.

Joseph Goebbels was one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates. He once said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

The big lie is that women are suppressed. It's been repeated often. And people believe it.