What Have They Done With My Lord?

In the Christian Bible, the story is told of Mary Magdalene, in her distress and tears, encountering Jesus after having seen him crucified. She had watched him die and be buried, so through her tears she thought the man in front of her to be a gardener. Seeing the tomb empty, she sobbed “What have they done with my Lord?”

At this Easter season Christians can again ask the question, “What have they done with our Lord?” Atheists and Jews, Hindus and Muslims have been asking us that very question for some time.

What little we know of Jesus is told in the Christian New Testament, in particular the four Gospels, and even there the record is spotty and not in apparent agreement. There is also, of course, all kinds of legend, but that’s pretty sketchy at best, much of it told by folks trying to grind an axe or make a point.

What the written record suggests, if you choose to accept it at face value, is that Jesus was a thoughtful, provocative, insightful, and mostly gentle personage, albeit with a feisty streak on occasion. He openly and frequently said that he had been sent to rescue the poor and the downtrodden, and he walked the talk.

He was direct and blunt enough to make important enemies– direct and blunt about ethical issues. Issues like honesty and fidelity and mercy and generosity, and not a word about abortion or school curriculum. The comfortable politico-religious establishment didn’t like him one bit. Not much has changed.

Mostly his message was about the things you would imagine Jesus would talk about – mercy, and authenticity, and gentleness, and kindness, and forgiveness, and things of that nature. Things that would make me a much better person if I allowed more of them in my life.

He was a self-declared Homeless Person. Like most transients of his day, he owned only the garment he wore and the sandals on his feet. I suspect he’d feel a little ill at ease in a televangelist’s thirty million dollar jet. Possibly he would have something to say, and it wouldn’t be Hallelujah.

The name of Jesus is invoked to support all kinds of legalistic “morality” causes, but if their supporters met Jesus in the garden, they wouldn’t recognize him either. Not because of tears, but because they’ve completely forgotten what he looks like.

Kris Kristofferson used to sing, “Reckon they’d just nail Him up if He come down again.” You got that right, Kris.