Friday 1 December 2017

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. – Mark 16:1


Today’s Scripture Reading (December 1, 2017): Mark 16

Since his death in prison last month (November 2017), we seem to be obsessed with Charles Manson. Newly released pictures of the cult-leader, little vignettes into his life, and stories of his association with various celebrities and would be stars grace our screens, along with an impassioned cry asking us to understand the evil that lurked inside of this man. For most, he is nothing more than a relic of a bygone era. I was only eight or nine when his “family” of idealistic supporters went on their murderous rampage in Los Angeles. But the truth is that even then, Manson was an enigma, a mystery, to most.

For most of us, we know him for his involvement in the Tate-LaBianca murders. His murder of actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant at the time, shocked the world. But the stories that grace my computer screen also remind me that Manson didn’t actually kill anyone. He let his adoring family do the murdering under his direction. Which leads us to a truth that most of us have long forgotten – or at least suppressed - Charles Manson was evil, but he was also a charismatic personality who preyed on the disenfranchised. All of the authors, emphatically stressing the evil of Manson, are afraid that now that he is dead, we will get lost in the charismatic side of the man. Too often with people like Manson, we see what we expect. Most of us have no problem seeing the evil because we have come to expect it, but in our world, there are still people, and Manson family members, who expect to see and therefore see, in Manson, the charismatic savior of the world. And most of those who see the charismatic savior are on the outside of prison. (It often seems to me that the wrong family members are locked up, away from where they can be a danger to the public.) But the critical question when you look into the eyes of Charles Manson has always been – what do you expect to see?

It is also the critical question when we look into the eyes of Jesus. Jesus was a charismatic leader. No, he did not ask his followers to kill for him. His message was the opposite of Charles Manson’s, based on a message of love for all people, but we can’t forget that his enemies feared that one day he could ask them to take up arms against the society and that his followers would gladly oblige. For most who gathered around the cross, his death was the end of an illegitimate personality cult that had threatened the world. But for his few followers, he was the Messiah, the Savior of the World.

It is apparent that his followers were confused by his death. On this Sunday morning, the first day that is was legally possible to visit the grave of their leader and do the work necessary to prepare the body for the grave; they expected to find Jesus lying dead in the tomb. There was no giddy wonder if the tomb just might be empty. There was no expectation of a risen Christ. The Messiah was dead, and he would remain that way. They had come to the tomb to deal with a dead body. Except that he wasn’t dead, a fact that would confuse the Jesus followers even further.

Slowly, the followers of Jesus saw what they had been blind to previously, that Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior of the World. Our hope for today is that the followers of Charles Manson will come to see him for who he was, not the Christ (which some still claim him to be) but more of a little antichrist who has now been left to the pages of history, never to be heard from again.       

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Luke 24

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my favorite (and only) nephew Kieran. Have a great day!

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