Easter Thoughts for Grown-Ups

With all this talk about cues for conversation with kids and teenagers around Easter, maybe you have had a few questions yourself! We got you. 

We can spend a lot of time wondering what Easter reveals to us about Jesus and God, but it's worthwhile to consider what death of Jesus reveals about us—humanity—as well.

Rene Girard, French literary critic and social science theorist, is most well-known for his development of the scapegoat theory. Since ancient times there have been scapegoating rituals, where a community has symbolically “transferred” its sin onto a person or animal who then is sent out or killed and in so doing takes away the guilt of the people. In fact, the practice in Leviticus 16 and Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is a scapegoating practice. Girard suggested these types of “ceremonies” continue to take place today, though under very different guises. Still, they serve the same purpose.  

Bible scholar and academic Jennifer Garcia Bashaw writes in her book Scapegoats,

“Scapegoating no longer functions as a communal act meant to please the gods, but it still operates because of fear.”

Scapegoating today, according to the American Psychological Association, is defined as “the process of directing one’s anger, frustration, and aggression onto others and targeting them as the source of one’s problems and misfortunes.” In other words, instead of dealing with our negative feelings (and taking responsibility/ownership for our role in them) we deflect. We put them on someone else, choosing instead to feel a kind of self-righteousness for our role.

So what does this have to do with Easter? Girard saw that what happened with Jesus’ death can be seen as a scapegoating ceremony. Jesus was scapegoated; Jesus and his message were seen as problematic, disruptive, and revealing of humanity and humanity’s systems in a way that was too uncomfortable to deal with. So, the people called for Jesus to die, and the rulers made it possible, in order that things could carry on as normal. Jesus willingly takes on this role—God doesn’t make him do it, or sentence him to it—he takes on the sin and guilt we put on him, and then, in his death, he serves as a kind of mirror. We see ourselves for who we are. We see what we are capable of—sentencing Jesus, as God, to die.

Have you ever tried to shift blame off of yourself onto someone else?

Have you ever considered the things in others that bother you are the same things about yourself that bother you?

What is something you have tried to avoid taking responsibility for, but you need to own up to?

What is the fear you have for saying something might be your fault instead of putting the blame on someone else?

Jesus came back from the dead after being sentenced to death, even though he was innocent, and refused to continue the cycle of violence that was used on him. He practiced the most difficult commandment of all—loving his enemies even when they wished to, and ultimately did, kill him.

What do you think is the hardest part about loving your enemy?

Is there someone you have a hard time loving because of what they said or did to you?

What keeps you from loving them?

What do you think it would cost you to love your enemies?

What would it take to model what Jesus did? 

As helpful as this image of Jesus as scapegoat and willing victim can be for some, in other ways it is a problematic approach. To populations and groups who have been taken advantage of or historically been mistreated, this approach can feel like a glorification of suffering and used to diminish the personhood and dignity of the one being victimized. Because of that, womanist, feminist and liberation theologians, who look at Scripture through the lens of more marginalized groups, are careful to talk about death and resurrection in a way that is life-affirming for all people. Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas writes, “God’s power…is not a power that diminishes the life of another so that others might live. God’s power respects the integrity of all human bodies and the sanctity of life. This is resurrection power.” In other words, when we talk about Easter and resurrection we need to talk about bringing the fullness of life, not dealing more death to some for the sake of life for others. We are undoing the work of death and violence, not glorifying it.

What about these different understandings of Easter, atonement and resurrection stand out to you?

What challenges you?

How does knowing different approaches to Easter change the way you have understood it in the past?