I go to this MOPS group (mothers of preschoolers - They allow me to go because my youngest is in kindergarten. But that's the oldest child one can have to be a member. After that, they kick you out.) It's at the church and through the church.
I had a meeting yesterday and a pastor was speaking to us about Easter. Easter is a fun story. So is Passover and so is Christmas and so are all of those other stories. They are very entertaining and fascinating and they compose everything that makes a good story.
The pastor was talking about the lamb and Passover.
"The Lord" had told the Egyptians that there would be a plague and that he was going to take the lives of every citizen's first born child. But he told them that if they were to sacrifice a lamb in the name of their first born children and smear the blood of the lamb over the doorway to their homes, he would pass over their homes and their first born child would not be harmed.
I just blurted out loud, sarcastically (okay it wasn't one of my proudest moments - or maybe it was), "Oh. That's what I did wrong."
A few moms sitting near me looked up at me and I was met with some smiles and then some looks of horror on their faces. I instantly felt remorse and settled back in and shut up as the pastor continued on with the story.
But this got me thinking. I went home and cursed to myself, "Why didn't I smear lamb's blood over my doorway???"
I was trying to sort all of this out and looked up the actual bible story. You can read for yourself here: (It is fascinating, I won't deny that.) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+12
But I got to thinking and what's disturbing to me is that there are people who think this is okay, more than okay, normal even.
I began to wonder, why would "The Lord" sacrifice one life for another? I was sure I had heard before that "The Lord" valued ALL life equally.
Then I remembered where I had heard that before. It was in the abortion debate! So now I'm wondering which is it? Does "The Lord" value ALL life the same? Or does he want us to sacrifice a lamb to keep our Sunflowers?
A few thoughts went through my mind. One was that "The Lord" suffers from split personalities. Another was that the people who follow "The Lord" suffer from split personalities - or worse.
It's all very confusing and disturbing to me. Maybe Easter isn't about bunnies and chicks but I have a lot of empathy for the people who began making it about bunnies and chicks.
The "real" Easter story is definitely riveting (no pun intended) but probably not one that many feel comfortable telling their children about. I don't blame them.
