Jesus weeps, and he weeps for you. For His friend, you, has died. Next to Lazarus you lay, and you both rot. You rot with isolation and loneliness. You rot with fear and uncertainty. You rot with danger of eviction and joblessness. The other corpses cry out in darkness - this tomb isn’t so bad. Learn a new skill, enjoy the cold stone beneath your back, read a book, become one with the burial shroud and its spices and myrrh, watch a movie, learn to love the tomb. The sepulchral stone is so heavy. You want to see your loved ones, to smell incense in church, to cry out with others “Christ is risen!” But the stone remains unphased. Yet you hear voices from beyond, you hear them from the overworld, from the land of the living. Are those saints? Are those angels? Isn’t that God amongst them, His face covered in tears? For if You were there, your patron saint says, my friend would not rot. Take away the stone, says a powerful voice, so full of authority that you marvel that the slab itself did not crack at these words to let the sunshine in and to let the stench out. You hear your guardian angel cries in disbelief: But Lord, there is a stench, for this one has been dead for many days. And so we wait, until we hear those powerful words, “Lazarus, come forth!” We finally fear air in our lungs, and only now we realize that we did not breathe; we feel warmth in our body, for a moment ago we were no warmer than the rock beneath us. They remove the shroud, and for the first time in our death, we feel alive. For the name that we heard when Jesus bid us to come forth, “Lazarus,” was not that of Lazarus, but our very own.
Hello my siblings in Christ, welcome to an emergency episode of Pencils & Prayer Ropes. Pardon the art style and sound quality. I wanted to reflect on an interesting development regarding a certain Christian baker. We will discuss the gay cakes of Cakegate. First, some background. A gay couple came to his bakery and asked for a wedding cake. The baker declined them, saying that making such a cake would be against his religious beliefs. The gay couple complains to Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which rules against the baker in a manner hostile and dismissive of religion. The baker then complains to the Supreme Court, which rules in his favor, saying that the Civil Rights Commission went against his freedom of expression. Let us talk about talking. As a way of reference, here’s how normal people talk: Gay Couple: Hello, we are a Gay Couple and we'd like to get married. In order to mark the occasion, we'd like to have a wedding cake made here, with two guys on top. Devout Baker: Hello! I am glad you considered my business, but see, I am a Devout Baker and what you're ordering goes against my principles. I am not denying you service because you're gay and I'd be more than willing to make whatever you guys want for any other occasion, just not this one. Would you like me to give you number of other bakeries that would be willing to take up the order? Gay Couple: Sure, that would be lovely! Devout Baker: Okay, here you go. Gay Couple: How very kind of you! Bye! Devout Baker: Bye! Here, I would like to emphasize that the baker did say that he’s willing to serve gay patrons, that he always did, but that he didn’t want, by proxy, to get involved in a religious ceremony which is against his beliefs. I don’t know if he offered them a different business, but that did happen in another case, where a Christian baker still got sued despite her trying to help the couple find a different bakery. Now, let us see how a bigot baker would react: Gay Couple: Hello, we are a Gay- Bigot Baker: GEDDOUT OF MA SHOP, YA [slur]S, YOU'ALL BURN IN HELL, YOU [slur slur obscenity slur]! Let us see how a bigot couple would react! Bigot Couple: Hello, we are a Gay Couple and we'd like to get married. In order to mark the occasion, we'd like to have a wedding cake made here, with two guys on top. Devout Baker: Hello! I am glad you considered my business, but see, I am a Devout Baker and what you're ordering goes against my principles- Bigot Couple: Please, go no further. We know there are a bajillion of other bakeries that would be more than willing to take up on our order, but this isn't about the cake anymore, we'd like to mark the occasion by putting you out of business. They leave, laughing like Disney villains. You see, I am all for the Supreme Court's ruling in this case. A Christian baker shouldn't be forced to make a cake that goes against his principles: a gay wedding cake, a cake to mark the centennial of the Church of Satan. A Hilary supporter shouldn't be forced to make a Make America Great Again cake, and a gay baker shouldn't be forced to make a cake that contains a saucy passage from Leviticus. A ma and pa bakery shouldn’t be forced to make an obscene cake for a stip joint. What the Supreme Court is saying, in a nutshell - it is that, when you're doing business, you're dealing with living, breathing human beings, not machines. And I'm all for that.
Hello, my siblings in Christ, I’m Bojan and today we will discuss the political stance of our God, Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Which of these three ideologies presented would our Lord prefer? Let us start with Communism. Historically, Communism wasn’t really… pro-religion. Let us put that aside right now. Christ taught things that Communism also proclaims. He taught us that we should care for the poor - and He went as far as to say that our ultimate destiny will practically depend solely upon how we treated the poorest of the poor. He taught us that all people are equal and that salvation is especially difficult for the rich. But wait, my comrades in Christ, don’t go singing ‘Bella, ciao’ in the church just yet! What Communism and Christ teach are very different things. Christ came, among other things, to cleanse our hearts. Communism doesn’t care one bit for your heart. Christ knows that the best way to help the poor is by curing our heart, curing it from greed and other passions. Saint John Chrysostom, a millenia and half before Communism and capitalism, said it best: “If we take riches from the rich and give them to the poor, the rich will become agitated and the poor will be thankless.” You solve a social issue but you don’t touch the heart - and we could speak for hours on end whether the social issue is solved. And it’s not. It never is. Whew, well, that makes Christ a capitalist then? Hehe, not so fast, my investors in Christ! … unless you’re heading over to Patreon to invest in this channel, love ya! See, Christ not being a Communist does not make him a capitalist, for the same reasons. Capitalism does not cure the heart. The failures of capitalism, when it comes to the human soul, are manifest plainly for all to see. Communism is a failure, but it is at least a well meaning failure; capitalism is a success, but it is a greedy, grabbing success. Unless tempered with lots of Christian charity (and by charity I don’t mean just just ‘love’ - I mean charity as in giving money to those less fortunate and those less capable than ourselves), capitalism is a ticking time bomb to hell. Well, that makes Christ a monarchist, then. It makes perfect sense! All Christian nations used to be monarchies; kings and queens were anointed; Christ is called “the King of Kings”, you guys in the Catholic Church have the feast of “Christ the King”... So, Christ must be a monarchist, right? Well… no. For you see, my subjects and sovereigns in Christ, Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and if you choose to proclaim a certain political system especially Jesus-y, you’re in for a disappointment. All the systems disappoint, and monarchy isn’t exempt. Christ being the King of Kings does not make some family’s arbitrary right to rule blessed by God. God can bless a monarch, true… but He can bless a president as well. Yes, we call Jesus the King of Kings, but that is because He does not die and His reign does not end - if we called Him the President of Presidents… well, who needs Christ as his or her president just for four years? Christ should never be used as a political icon. No state on Earth can function with giving away its riches and forgiving its enemies. That is fine - Christ didn’t come to save states. States are the way fallen world works. We will forever use Christ as a mirror to our political ideologies - and either those ideologies will shatter before Him, or we will make a different Christ in our image, that is to say - an Antichrist.
