I often wish for a simple and uncomplicated life.
I remember making up ‘fairy tales’ for my nephews and nieces when they were little.
At family gatherings I would sit with them and share stories.
They always had a happy ending.
I often wish that life always had a happy ending.
‘And they lived happily ever after ‘.
There is a difference between acting with integrity and things always working out as we would wish.
The story of the death and resurrection of Jesus has a tragic and dramatic even apparently catastrophic component.
Betrayal, violence, abuse, and murder!
Yet it does have an amazingly good ending.
Jesus is risen never to die again, and we are invited to share in that resurrection.
The passion and death are certainly no trivial and simplistic set of events.
Yet In the midst of them Jesus did not lose faith.
Even though He agonised, and was in great distress and amazing physical, mental, and spiritual pain, he still trusted in the Abba.
This paradox is a reminder that things are often not ‘either or‘ but ‘this and that‘.
We cannot deny reality; we do at our peril risk getting lost In unreality.
With Jesus we can always face reality with hope.
So yes there can always ultimately be a happy ending.
Things will be well!
However, there are no short cuts.
There is no resurrection without a death.
A death to the ego and to sin .
We keep our gaze on the One who is love and keeps empowering us to love even unconditionally.
