The most paradoxical and most unique characteristic of Christianity is that of the resurrection of Christ. In fact, Christianity without this claim is only a moral system without too much spiritual consistency. Unless ALL of Christianity is centered in the victorious, life, and ever present reality of Jesus Christ, the Man-God who conqueror of death, it loses it’s distinction.
Thus, Christianity proclaims to us that in order to find life we must die to life as we know it. To discover the meaning of human existence we must find not the meaning that we expect but the meaning that is revealed to us by the Father through Christ. Meaning is not something that we can find within ourselves, for we are so insufficient. True life and it’s meaning must be revealed or in other words received as a “gift.” The very fact that life is a gift makes is valuable; for life itself is, in the end only valuable in so far as it is given.
Christian life, the God-kind of life, in the fullest sense of the word — is not mere individual, self-centered, egotistical life which ends in death, but real life transcending individual limitations and needs, because it comes from beyond “the self,” and exists due to the existence of “another.”
In the resurrection we see that life was given through the death of self. That life is received into our lives. This life revealed in death brings about both our death and our birth into a life that is eternal, abundant and thus beyond our own individuality. A life that is because it is no longer concerned with self.
Real life, is not merely a subsistence in one’s own self, nor self-assertion or self-gratification. Real life is freedom that transcends the self and exists in “the other” by love. A love that is the result of having receive “the gift” of life. This is “freedom,” a freedom that comes only from “losing its life in order to find it.” The perfection of this life is love. A Christian believes that this love has the power to overcome death.
As we move towards “Easter,” my spirit is drawn once again into the vastness of this love. This love brings about a darkness that covers and hides all else but the “One” who loves me. In some ways I am intoxicated with the essence of His Presence. The world loses it’s hold and the Holy Spirit lifts me out of the grip of this world into the embrace of the “other.”
Lent, then is more about “receiving” that giving up. Rather than focus on what one might surrender I sense with every breath that I am receiving far more than I have ever given.
