Why Are We Here?

I returned this holy week from Kansas University Med Center where dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.  A physically active, hard working man, dad’s grown tired of his pre-existing diabetes and MG, a neural degenerative disease attacking his 82-year-old body.  In frustration he lamented, “What’s the purpose?  Why’d God bother to put us down here (on earth)?  Do our lives matter?  Is all this physical erosion meant to appease God?”

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Dad wrestles with these questions now as his body is failing him.  But I’ve wrestled with these questions for some time.  I like the cyclic nature of the Church’s calendar re-immersing me into Paradox and Mystery.  Though I believe God is a constant, my understanding and relationship with God is definitely evolving.  As a young person, I felt offended as I listened to Catholic homilies indict humanity, me included, as complicit for Jesus’ crucifixion.  “I wasn’t there.  I’d never have had any part of that.”  Sound familiar?  As I entered university studies, I grew to understand community sin, prejudices, lifestyle choices I’d inherited and perhaps have perpetuated.  “Yes, I nailed our Lord’s hand to the wood.  I am responsible.” I’d arrived.  I got it!  Jesus came to save us from our sinful nature and lead us through his resurrection to salvation.  I internalized this to soak and to nurture for years, but new growth eventually contracted.

     An emptiness expanded with each passing year.  I struggled with “atonement,” Jesus dying on Good Friday and the role a loving God performed.  Jesus was the ultimate atoning sacrifice to reconcile creation.  However, I found atonement unsettling, not because this is indeed what happened, but that it seemed too incomplete to me, something critically vital remained missing … a fog of discouragement settled.

     I revisited Genesis where God creates humanity, bestows freedom to make choices, and then gets angry when man exercises his options.  Evil, characterized by the serpent is also created by God.  I’ve always had problems with an all-loving God creating a serpent with greater persuasive powers than He has.  God seems to have set Adam and Eve up for the inevitable fall, to be punished, banished from the garden and forced to roam the earth for survival.  Throughout the early scriptures, a temperamental God continues to express anger with humanity’s infidelity.  He seems no better than His creation, appearing to be imperfect with his anger management issues.  It is as if redemption, literally meaning “buying back” has to happen … the ultimate sacrifice is made.  We had to crucify Jesus.  It was in the historical plan to fulfill this need in God.  

     Herod could have murdered Jesus while slaying the infant innocents.  Or God could have sacrificed Jesus early in Galilee for all the trouble and dissonance he was creating … and we all know he created quite a mess!  If Jesus’ purpose on earth was to die, then why give him nearly thirty years of early life and three years of ministry?  Those years were not for God.  Jesus, incarnate, came for us!  For as dramatic and loving his sacrifice is for us, Jesus came to show us how to live a radical life.  He asks us to imitate him in loving the Father and one another.  He came proclaiming the Kingdom of God is present.  Find the divine presence “within” yourself and others.  He threatened socio-economic structures, unjust governments, artificial religious authorities, and power structures. And for his living, actions and convictions, humanity executed him. 

             I’ve always struggled with the atonement idea that God was sent to die for our sins … and that Jesus was playacting some pre-planned script as if he knew what was coming.  I don’t think Jesus, fully human, was clairvoyant.  Not unlike other courageous individuals who entered life threatening situations, Jesus understood the tremendous risk he was taking and indeed, surrendered his life for love of us! 

            As dad and I watched life taken in Brussels, we witnessed a culture of death in ISIS, whose actions they justify as if earning a special place in eternity is a complete disconnect from life on earth.   Though nearly not as harsh, atheists’ perceptions of faiths around the world are not much different in that “the Kingdom” so many talk of is some mythical place beyond where we are now.  Why did God bother to put us here?  Do our lives matter more than simply existing then dying?  At the moment of conception, one enters the Kingdom.  Hopefully, we receive purpose and direction.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog (What Kingdom? Where? Jan 15), we experience in moments of grace … love, beauty, celebration, the Holy Spirit …  when God’s gift of His kingdom is more evident to us than others.  

Despite our imperfections, we have been entrusted with purpose to care for and to build up the kingdom throughout this life and the next.  While we move through it, we do not move through quantum states like steps of a staircase, but through a continuum, a ramp in life that grows more positively with our relationship with God.  It means choosing a culture of life and love in our relationships with every one … as God resides in each of all creation!  Here I am aware I lack that quality relationship!  My journey is not smooth, actually quite rough, as I experience the road to Emmaus where I rely on God to give me course corrections often.  God continues to call us regardless of age or circumstance. 

            We have choices in this world.  The kingdom is precious.  Our choices are not only personal, but social as well, influencing the journeys of others.  When I make detrimental choices, I am diminished.  Though I am a small part of the world, it is diminished some also.  Though I make personal choices, they are never private.  I may be optimistic, but I do not want to mislead.  Folks may choose permanent deadness often referred to as hell.  Do we do what we do as a response to Jesus’ compassionate invitation to love, faith and hope?  Do we work to improve the quality of life for all?  Do we promote a culture of life above that of violence and degradation?  Do we care for our environment and its homeostasis?  Do we share mercy in justice?  Do we offer thanksgiving and forgiveness?  I am limited when considering the elements of heaven.  I cannot imagine the Beyond.  But in the kingdom in which we live I am in awesome wonder of the magnificence and mystery of creation.  I cannot even take it all in.  I am so overwhelmed!

            Jesus’ death and resurrection authenticated his infinite love for us.  He invites us to live, to imitate with radical purpose!  May you have a blessed Easter!

Footnote:

As shown in the green, community sin such as racism, genocide, holocaust are examples of dips, while peace, environmental accords, social justice are positive rises.

Individually in yellow, character assassination, arrogance, greed are negative slopes, while mercy, forgiveness, and gratitude are builders of relationship with God and others.

Overall, we hope both are trending positively!

Resurrection completes life as we know it and introduces new life with the Father.