This Easter Season, Let’s resurrect the teachings of Jesus

Norman Franklin

Norman Franklin

The name of Jesus is well known. There are songs that praise Him. He is the object of worship. Chris tians believe that He was crucified on a cross over 2,000 years ago. He died. He was buried. He rose from the grave after three days. Easter is the celebra tion of the Risen Christ. Christians love to sing praises to His name. His teachings on kindness and loving our neighbor have become central to the faith. However, patterns of commercialized celebrations suggest that His teachings have become trivial.

In today’s culture, the ditch is wider and deeper. The social safety net fails the disinherited. They fall into the ditch of otherness. It is a result of embedded injustice in the social hierarchy. Systemic potholes along the road to a promised prosperity cause them to tumble into the ditch. In our culture of hyper Christian identity, the parable of the Good Samaritan must be reexamined — who is the Good Samaritan today?

In the par able, the ditch was a metaphor for Israel’s bro ken religious system. What is the ditch today? Is it government policies, social policies or is it systemic? Why is the ditch growing? Does our flawed theology push more people into the ditch? The perspective is that social programs designed to aid and uplift the poor are promoting socialism. The “get yours the same way I got mine” philosophy argues that the broken, the disinherited should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

The metaphor infers that they have the resources to improve their lives. Their resources are meager— their needs are great. They live week-to-week and paycheck to paycheck. For those on a fixed income, it becomes an acquired skill of prioritizing purchases—medications or food until next month’s the benefits. These are “why questions” that our Christian culture must answer. The teachings of Jesus are the solutions we must apply. According to the Bible, “we are not our own, we belong to the One we worship” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

How should that shape our public lives? How should it influence our belief systems? Should it stem the systemic flow into the ditch of brokenness and poverty? How should it challenge the national policies of a professed Chris tian nation? The teachings of Jesus provide the insight needed to turn this thing around. There is popular Christian song that calls for Jesus to “Come Lord and turn this thing around.” But the Lord has already been here. He left His teachings which have become gospel doctrine that can turn the ditch into a place of com passion and hope.

As we celebrate the Res urrection, as we proclaim, “He Is Risen” let us remem ber the parable of the Good Samaritan. Let us recall the Sermon on the Mount. Let us remember what Jesus taught rather than His teachings reshaped to accommodate our own theology.

The Resurrected Christ embodied the totality of His three-and-a-half-year ministry of teaching. Three and a half years of demon strating the love of God.