Good Friday, Crabs, and Jesus

Good Friday, Crabs, and Jesus

I’ve had a recommitment with my faith this weekend.  On Good Friday our church had a service I’ll soon not forget.

I went to Catholic school from Kindergarden until I graduated college.  I have heard the story of Jesus and his life more times than I can remember.

Now I’ve always believed in God, but had a difficult time with submitting my life to Jesus. You might be wondering, “How can that be the case John?  You grew up in a good Christian household.  You came from good parents.  You’ve been surrounded by it your whole life. What could possibly still hold you back.”

I developed Christian hand sanitizer syndrome.  Have you ever heard that if you use hand sanitizer to much your germs will soon become immune to it?  Well, my heart became immune to the life and story of Jesus.

My wife Monica and I went to Good Friday Service this last week, and I was going with the flow as I usually do.  

At the end of service, they put the words of the worship music on the screen, while behind the words they played excerpts from Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”.  The excerpts you want to close your eyes to.  The excerpts you wish to God weren’t real.

I fought back the tears as much as I could that night, but the tears won.  

The next night, Monica and I went to one of our favorite places to eat... Joe’s Crab Shack.  She asked me if I was planning on going to the Men’s retreat at our church in a few weeks.

And then it all came out.

Every fear, every concern, every gripe I had about being a Christian.  Again, I had a great personal relationship with God.  I prayed to him every night. 

Being a follower of Jesus on the other hand meant:

-Giving up drinking

-Giving up the hilarious sometimes dirty stand up comedy and TV shows

-Being judgemental of others

*Especially homosexuals, or non-believers

-Guilt of lusting over other women (I am a man after all...right?)

-Being alienated from friends because they don’t agree

-Giving up the opportunity to learn from other spiritual leaders and teachers

-Giving up power to “the devil” vs. taking personal responsibility

I feared judgement.  Being the recipient, and being the giver.  

It took me a good 24 hours of quitness and reflection before it all started to come to me like one of those movies where the plot thickens and thickens until the final scene where everything starts to make sense.

The life and story of Jesus is one about one thing... love. Love for humanity, love for enemies, the lost, the sick, and the suffering.  It’s not about judgement.

Judgement is a human condition to make sense of things that we do not understand.

Being a follower of Jesus is about being committed to love.  That’s all.  Everything else is noise, noise of the human condition.

I am happy to say that I am a follower of Jesus and will be at the Men’s retreat with my church in two weeks.

Have a wonderful day, I hope you enjoyed the read.