A Good Reminder in an Unexpected Place

Last night my family went to a fun, family event in Bozeman: a movie night on the jumbo-tron at the MSU football stadium. We laid out blankets and chairs, and sat on the field with a thousand other people, eating popcorn and watching the new kids’ movie, Ferdinand. What a great night!

Now, for those of you who haven’t read the children’s book or watched the movie, I’m about to spoil some of the plot. Essentially, the movie is about a massive bull who would rather smell flowers and roll in the grass than be a world-renowned star in the bullfighting ring. Ferdinand doesn’t have a violent bone in his body, but is constantly hounded and harassed about his need to fight. He’s relentlessly mocked for his weakness and cowardice—for being ‘soft.’ To exist in his world is to fight. That’s just the way things are. If you don’t leave the ranch in a trailer heading for the glory of the ring, you eventually leave in a trailer heading to the meat-packing plant. There’s only those options: kill or be killed.

The Empire is everywhere. It mocks weakness and tempts us toward violence. It sells the false narrative that violence, power, and control are normal. It hypnotizes us into believing its lie of ‘might makes right’; tricks us into thinking there is only one way to the top.

But Ferdinand doesn’t buy the lie. He is never persuaded to violence. When he’s paraded into the ring of death, to kill or be killed, he constantly and insistently chooses peace over violence. And even when the matador has finally cornered Ferdinand—the unwilling participant in this imperial sport of violence and death—the mighty bull plops onto his haunches and refuses to fight back.

And the beauty of Ferdinand’s non-violent resistance to the violence and evil of the empire was that he won over the crowd, who insisted on his life being spared. Peace had conquered violence; death had been defeated.

Ferdinand is Jesus. I proudly worship a non-violent savior—who refused to fight back amidst mockery, suffering, and death—and in doing so, exposed the impotency and cowardice of the empire and made a way for death to be defeated and a new life-giving way to emerge. And Jesus invites us into this same way of creative, prayerful, non-violent resistance to the status-quo of the empire—the quest for money, power, and self-gratification. We are called to lay down our swords, absorb the violent barbs of the empire, and reveal to the world a new way of peace and love.

I know it’s just a movie, but may we have the courage of Ferdinand—to stand up to the powers and ways of the world that directly oppose the way of Jesus. May we be strong enough to be weak; brave enough to be peaceful; heroic enough to step out of the false-binary of ‘fight or flight’ and find a new Jesus-centered third way to engage with the world.

The Gospel of Foolishness

As I write this, we are four days from April…and equally as far from Easter. You see, for the first time since 1956, Easter falls on April 1—and it won’t happen again for another 11 years. So, with this strange coincidence, it seems ‘foolish’ to not reflect on the inherent connections between Easter and April Fool’s Day. And I don’t think I’m stretching to find these connections.

Now, I enjoy joking around and the occasional prank as much as anyone, and pride myself being humorous, but my humor pales in comparison to the massive joke Jesus enacts on Resurrection Day.

The religious and governmental elites thought they had their obnoxious and pervasive issue put to rest. They had rid themselves of this prophetic insurrectionist and they could once again enjoy the perks of unchallenged power and authority. By Friday night, all was made right…by might. Jesus is dead, his followers had scattered, and the normal social hierarchy had been restored. While those closest to Jesus spent that Saturday in grief, the religious and political leaders spent that Saturday in relief.

But, of course, that wasn’t the end of the story. Sunday comes, the tomb is empty, and the Son of God gets the final laugh. Jesus pulls the most elaborate prank in human and cosmic history through defeating death and raising to new life.

“Ta-da! You thought I was gone. You thought you had won. You thought your problems had been (literally) buried away. Well, I’m back. Death couldn’t hold me down.”

The resurrection of Jesus is the most well-crafted and astonishing April Fool’s Joke ever.

But to take this line of thinking one layer deeper, Jesus’ resurrection also reveals the foolishness of thinking that violence is ever the solution to the world’s problems or that death could ever triumph over life. Jesus adamantly declares the incredible wisdom found in what the world would call utter foolishness: that peace doesn’t come through the sword, but through non-violence; that murderers and terrorists are not overcome through violence and war, but through love and generosity; that evil is not conquered through military might, but through the sacrifice of one’s self.

This upside-down paradigm most-certainly seems foolish through a worldly lens, but the Resurrection proclaims the wisdom in this backward way of thinking. Jesus has come bringing a new kingdom of love, grace, generosity, sacrifice, and powerlessness—and the joke’s on anyone who fails to recognize the inherent goodness and truth of this new, radically-different sort of kingdom.

All hail our Mischievous Messiah; our Playful Prince; our Spirited Savior. May we truly embrace the upside-down, mess-with-your-head nature of the resurrection—the foolishness of the cross.

Our True Identity

Very early in the book of Mark—at the beginning of his ministry—we get the story of Jesus being baptized by his cousin John, the first Baptist.

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

This is a passage about calling and identity. As Jesus hears the voice of his Father, he is confirmed of his reason for donning skin and emerging on earth. He’s here for a reason. The “spirit like a dove” and the “well pleased” lines are throwbacks to Isaiah 42, where the messiah is promised as the bringer of salvation. The “son of God” language is first used in Psalm 2:7, where King David is spoken of as the son of God. So, when Mark pens this passage, he is demonstratively declaring that Jesus is the New David, the perfect king who has come to save the world.

But look closer at the passage. While all this is true, and there are most-certainly tasks that Jesus has come to perform, those tasks do not encompass his full identity. The way I see it, Jesus’ true identity comes not from what he does, but who he is. First and foremost, above all else, and apart from anything he does and says, Jesus is loved…and he is pleasing to God. It’s his true, central, undeniable identity: he is loved by God.

And of course, right?! I don’t love my kids based on what they do or accomplish. Sure, they have a God-given calling and identity that I pray they fulfill. But, first and foremost, regardless of anything they ever achieve in life, I love them. I am pleased with them. And God loves them too.

The same is true for you: despite anything you’ve ever done or not done, you are loved. The God of the universe created you, is pleased with you, and is deeply infatuated with you. I pray you will know—deep in your bones—that your central, core identity is as the beloved child of God, who is profoundly pleased with you and always will be. May we learn to trust this calling and identity. May we believe in our beloved-ness. And may we extend that same love and delight to all we encounter.