A Faith of Absurdities

At this feast of Easter, one conclusion can’t be denied. Christianity is a faith of paradoxes and absurdities. I’m not claiming other religions don’t have them, on the contrary. Jesus, however, is a person who seemed to embody the controverse and the paradox. I give some examples below.

1.      He is dead, but belongs to the living.

2.      What was hidden from the wise is revealed to children.

3.      The last will be first.

4.      For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. (The Matthew Effect)

5.      Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.

6.      Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.

7.      Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

8.      For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.

9.      The blind see and the deaf hear.

10.  The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

 

A lot of lectures start with something obvious, e.g. “this person is a sinner”. After Jesus’ intervention, sometimes by means of a metaphor or a parable, the obvious proves to be not so obvious and the contrary of the obvious proves to be closer to the truth after all. This pattern occurs a lot in the gospels. Now, you could claim that wisdom is often like that. Confucius, Socrates and Seneca were not bad at paradoxes either. That is probably true, but the fact that Jesus has the courage to stick to his paradoxes until the last moments of his life probably played a role in the 2000-year popularity of his messages.

This is not to say that Christianity is only about wisdom, paradoxes and absurdities, and the correlated popularity of the message. Christianity is not meant either for a small tribe of intellectuals who believe they understand the astute subtleties. The heart of the matter goes much deeper. It is about his modesty, and the faith, love and hope he shared. We should not celebrate Easter because we give his wisdom a thumbs up. We celebrate Easter because this controversial personality is still with us and because we love Him so much.

Afbeelding van Kathryn Kolencik via Pixabay