Where Will We Stand?

People so often manage to turn the Christian faith into a crutch, a hearty thumbsuck or their own, personal little club that they entirely miss what it's all about. Good Friday is one of those times, during the year, when we are supposed to stop and remember.

All too often, we get caught up in the celebration and the pageantry of the Easter season, and we overlook what's central about it. When we read again the story of Christ's passion and crucifixion, we tend to forget a few things we'd be wise to recall.

Those most responsible for handing Jesus over to death were the "good, religious people" of their time. People very impressed with their own piety. People who found it offensive that God might love those they hated. The fact that Jesus welcomed the outcasts, the sinners and the "unlovable" was what largely led to his demise.

What we ought to ask ourselves, as we watch Christ stagger past us carrying His Cross, is where WE would have stood had we been there when it happened. Would we have followed Him to Calvary, standing at the foot of His Cross in solidarity with Him and being washed with His blood? Or would we have stood amid the angry, hateful and self-righteous mob that screamed for his crucifixion?

Seldom is the answer made clearer by anyone than it was by somebody who dumped troll-dirt on this Blog after yesterday's post. The dude came right out and admitted HE DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO READ THE DAMN POST, yet because he happened to catch sight of the last paragraph -- which spoke of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Christians -- he was so consumed with blind and irrational hate that he had to leave a comment. He informed me that I had "ticked him off" by claiming that gay people can be Christians. Then he said that this was not possible.

Pardon me, but nobody died and made this clown God. He simply doesn't get to determine who can or cannot be a Christian. All he did, by leaving such a stupid and cowardly comment (he didn't even have the courage to leave his own friggin' name), was show that HE is not a Christian.

Jesus warned that not everyone who says to Him "Lord, Lord," will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But as this guy obviously reads the Bible as sloppily, lazily and irresponsibly as he does the blog posts on which he comments, he'd hardly be in any position to know that.

One would think it might be of interest to a Christian just discovering the existence of Christian gays that at least some of us are concerned about right doctrine (the subject, of course, of my previous post). This guy, however, has been driven so mad by hate that it's more objectionable to him that people he dislikes are in relationship with Christ than it is that others might not accept the authority of the testimony to Him we find in Scripture.

This is the same thing that so "ticked off" Jesus's murderers.

I'll take this commenter's kind on anytime, anywhere, and I will eat his lunch. Just bring it. None of his type, however, have the guts to show their faces. Certainly not when they don't even have the guts to reveal their names.

As for who's the better Christian, and who's more of a sinner, let's examine YOUR life, you coward, and see how you stack up. I'll compare my life with yours any day of the week.

We all know where you stand, dude. You are one spiritually-sick and twisted mess. You stand among Jesus's crucifiers. If He were to come back today, you'd crucify Him all over again.

I always welcome comments from my readers, and encourage you all to leave more of them. And I will certainly be courteous to you if you are the same to me. But this Blog is my house, and I have the right to expect decent manners from those who visit here. If you bring garbage like that here, I'm gonna smoke you.

Act like a boor and you'll be treated like one. Bring intelligent insights to this Blog, and whether you agree with me or not, we'll have a civil conversation. The one thing I will NOT tolerate is anybody who claims to be a Christian (or at least to pass judgment on whether others are Christians or not), but can do no better themselves than to dishonor Christ.

This is, after all, Good Friday. Christ has suffered quite enough already.