Friday, September 23, 2011
Jesus wept - 2
Contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians point out that "you will never see a SMILING icon" and they term this the "gladdening sorrow" of Orthodoxy. I know one fellow who at midnight of the Easter Resurrection posted a youtube clip of Jesus and the thieves on the cross singing a musical. I asked him if that were not in poor taste and he explained that HIS Jesus has a great sense of humor and will not mind such a post at Easter midnight. I feel sorry for such people and have no use for a jolly God of stand-up comedy. Jesus called the pharisees "a generation of vipers" and said "you shall be judged for every idle word which proceeds from your lips." Gandhi explains in his autobiographical "Experiments in Truth" WHY he rejects Christianity as his personal religion and it is because he would see British Christians sin in the most casual fashion and when he questioned them they would explain "Oh, but we are constantly mystically cleansed in our baptismal waters by the blood of Christ's substitutional atonement." Gandhi explains "I do not seek to ESCAPE the consequences of my wrong-doing but, if possible, I seek to extinguish wrong-doing at its very source."
