He Is Risen

Today is Easter. Which is awesome. In general, I do not take enough time in my life to slow down and reflect. This is due to a) my procrastination so I always wait to have a ton of things to do b) general apathy and laziness and c) simply not slowing down--which seems to be fairly typical of a lot of people I know. So anyways, today I was sitting there in church thinking about all that is going on in my life--decisions that I need to make, things I need to do, yadda yadda yadda. I'd like to tell you that I didn't do any work today, or that I stopped thinking about the things I had to do to focus on what Jesus did today, but that wouldn't be wholly truthful. Which is a travesty and is my loss, but God still speaks through my selfishness anyways, thank goodness. Anyways, today as I was sitting there thinking in church, the pastor was talking about the beauty of the resurrection--how if we'd made it all up we would have chosen the "big star men" (aka Peter, John and James) to carry the message that Jesus was risen. But yet, God chose the women--who back in the day were NOTHING to anyone to carry the most important message of the whole world. This is why I love Jesus--because he pulls stuff like this ALL THE TIME (he's such a rebel!). I've been reading Velvet Elvis, as I've previously mentioned, and Rob Bell talks about how the disciples were the losers, the second class/lower class citizens who weren't worthy to be rabbis. Only the top notch scholars of the day were deemed worthy to become Rabbis--everyone else had to do trade stuff like be fisherpeople--yet these were the people that Jesus chose to follow Him. And again, I love this about Jesus. I feel like I always would say that I believed that Jesus picked the losers--but if you really think about what that means for us today, things really haven't changed. Women still aren't believed--or they're "too emotional" or whatever. The poor are downtrodden. Racism still abounds (believe it or not--data supports it). We treat people everyday as less then because of these pre conceived notions we have--yet these are the people that Jesus entrusted his entire message with. And that really makes my heart burst with joy. I mean really? The God of the universe would entrust those that the world hates the most with the grandest, most hugely world-altering message of all time? The ones that don't have all their ish together? I mean, if I were to pick someone to represent me, I'd pick someone really prestigious, like Mariska Hargitay, or Ellen DeGeneres or someone who is hilarious and/or has a lot of social prestige and is going to make me look REALLY good and smart and fantastic if I'm being really honest with you--I wouldn't go pick just anyone off the street. But no. This is not how God does things. And this the type of God I can believe in.