Nero and the Resurrection:

There can be no doubt that we live in the greatest empire of the modern age. Technologically we are ahead of nearly every country, we are wealthy beyond belief, we have creature comforts like no other nation in the world, yet something is amiss. There is something that just doesn't jive. As we have seen in the last week, one of the most peaceful countries in Europe, was bombed by Muslim terrorists. In addition to this, our top two conservative candidates have entered into a twitter war over who has the hottest wife, a democratic nominee who is a walking security violation with a chronic lying problem and a whole generation of millennials that believe they deserve everything for free and that entering into a conversation with our enemies will pacify them. We are modern Rome.

Think about it. We have a corrupt senate and congress that serves itself and not the people, a judiciary system that no longer seeks the truth, only what they can prove and is motivated politically instead of by justice, and a president who is a would-be emperor who seeks nothing but to satisfy his own un-slaked thirst for power, glory and entertainment. Our president is a madman who lives in a dream world of peace and harmony between all men. Sadly this is not our world. This is not the reality the rest of creation lives in. We live in a fallen world of disharmony and pain. Suffering and death. We live in an age of terror, where wicked men seek to do us bodily harm and corrupt our souls for their false god of Islam. While all this is going on in the world, our president and those like him would have us believe that evil is small and harmless, that Islam is peaceful and loving, that plurality is the path to peace. He posits (along with those like him) a social utopia where those who work carry along those who do not out of a false sense of fairness. A utopia where those who contribute to society and make it prosperous will feed and clothe the lazy and provide them with material pleasures as a reward for their apathy and self serving attitudes. Our president is Nero, fiddling away while Rome burns. He is dancing the tango while allied countries in true distress from terrorism mourn. He goes to baseball games with our enemies when he should be in a war room planning the defeat of those who are devoted to the very core of their being to destroy us. The glory of Rome is no more.

And yet, in the midst of this, we are here, on this day that many in the world celebrate the Resurrection. It is a day that we look back and remember that there is hope. We look back and see the death of death in the death of Christ. A man who was fully man, and so much more... Fully God.  To our sensibilities, it seems almost incomprehensible to think about. How can one man defeat death? How can the pain and suffering of this world be alleviated by a man who suffered a humiliating, embarrassing (it was a shame to be executed on a cross in ancient Rome), and most painful execution? The truth is, if he was simply a man, it would be rather unremarkable.Nothing special, just another criminal of the state being executed for crimes against the state. Yet there was something remarkable about Jesus of Nazareth, this humble carpenter from a backwater country that nobody really cared about. He had an unusual father who set a plan into motion before we existed. A plan where pain and suffering and death would be eliminated. Where death would die to the man who was slain for us. And he could accomplish it because he was not just a man, he was also God. This is a day that we look back and see that all that is wrong in this world is coming to an end. Our bent, twisted existence is being made straight, and it was the beginning of the end for evil and those who would do harm to others. It began the process whereby all things are made new. Is it no wonder that when Mary Magdalene saw that the stone had been rolled away her first thought was that someone had come and stolen the body of Christ? It took the two men there to ask her why she sought the living among the dead and Christ simply saying her name to open her eyes to what had happened. Our Nero will continue fiddling, and our Rome is destined to perish. It is the way of men. Nothing we build lasts forever. it is prone to corruption, but we have an incorruptible Lord who stands risen above all things and has promised that though nations shall rise and nations shall fall, we can take heart, knowing that death is defeated, pain and suffering are but for a moment, and then peace. Joy.