WEARING THE CROWN
An Easter Text

“The Messiah must suffer, and rise from death on the third day.”
 
      Messiah – or Christ – can also mean ‘King.’  The symbol for King is the crown.  Only the king wears the crown.
      In John’s version of the Easter drama, the only crown Jesus wears in his life-time is the crown of thorns – the crown of suffering.
      The Gospel of Luke – my Easter season choice – repeats this text over and over.  It is actually one of the earliest creedal statements about Jesus.  Jesus is the one who suffered and rose on the third day.
      It is a thing of honor to wear the crown.  Few wear it.  In the ancient Greek games athletes would train and suffer and push themselves for the honor of wearing a laurel crown.  That’s where we get the term, “earning your laurels.”  It went to the winner.
      That symbol has been replaced by the award medal.  Usually gold, silver or bronze.  In lesser events the award is a ribbon.  Blue, red and white are common.
      Most of us would like to “wear the crown,” at least win a medal or a ribbon.  If possible we would like to win it without much effort.  We would like to think we could make it to the top on our natural talent.  It is one of the great blows in life to discover that if you “can’t bear the cross, you won’t wear the crown.”
      Whether you want to be a doctor or a gymnastics star or play on an NCAA basketball championship team, there’s a price to be paid.  Every University athletic department now has a weight room – a training room.  Athletes often think of it as a torture room.  It is a place of suffering for sake of strength.  The path to star-dom is through the training room.
      Easter tells us that Jesus didn’t get to be Messiah the easy way.  He had to suffer.  The reason this statement is repeated throughout the gospel is that the evangelists wanted Christians to be willing to pay the price of following Christ as a way of earning their own crown.  Those who want to walk the way of Jesus must walk the way of suffering.
      Of course, no one wants to suffer.  In fact, most who attend churches on Easter were not there on Good Friday to go through the agony of the humiliation, suffering and death of Jesus.  In fact, many do not want anything but a triumphant Jesus.  Some people canceled tickets to a showing of the Passion Play – the death of Jesus – when they discovered the actor playing Jesus was black.
      This idea of the necessity of suffering is so strong in Christianity that many have sought martyrdom in order to earn their crown.
      One of the problems with the whole scheme is that many who suffer don’t win the crown.  I’ve watched runners far back in the pack doing their race.  They work as hard, suffer as much as those who win.  All they do is finish.  They suffer and don’t win anything.
      It happens in life.  We can have goals that we work toward, suffer for, but never achieve.  Most artists and musicians fail.  The athletes who dream of a career in the NFL or NBA do not realize that 199 out of 200 will not make it.  Suffering is no guarantee of a crown.  But there can be no crown without suffering.
      So, what is the point of such a text at Easter?
      I would like to sum up the message of Easter like this: 
No matter what, life goes on.
      We spent several days on the Gulf of California – The Sea of Cortez – watching life go on.  You see the sardines “dancing” on the water.  Only they are not dancing.  They are being chased by Skipjacks, who themselves are soon jumping frantically trying to escape the Rooster Fish.  As cruel as it seems, life feeds life.  And in suffering and death, life goes on.  In fact, it does not go on without suffering and death.
      This is the place for faith.  In winter’s darkness, in the storms and calamities of the season, there is hope.  The buried bulbs and seeds show forth in color and life.  We are reminded again that life goes on.
      When the terrible fire that destroyed the stables and arena of the Glass Farm, taking with it 16 horses, the forces of death and suffering and sorrow were in power.  But a greater power took hold.  The power of life.  The faith that No matter what, life goes on.  We gathered around and planted daffodil bulbs where the horses were buried.  They bloom in the spring to this day, a testimony that such a faith is not in vain.
      The Easter story is full of legend and mystery.  It never forgets to include the reality of suffering.  Even Jesus, named King – El Rey – suffered.  Even Jesus – hijo de Dios – died.  But No matter what, life goes on.
      I Peter 3:17 says: He was put to death physically, but made alive spiritually.
      The whole of Christian literature celebrates that wonder.
      There are times when it doesn’t seem so.  Just before we left for Baja I was involved in three memorial events.  In two of them, circumstances were such that grief was an easy burden.  In the other, grief sorely tested the faith of Easter, the promise of Spring.  We want to say to them the Easter words …life goes on. 
      It is not easy to hear.  But the proof is before their eyes.  On the very week of Al’s death, in the very hospital where he died, a grandson was born.  The day before he died the grandson was brought to his grandfather who held him in his arms.  I saw the picture of the pleased and proud grandfather.  The next day Al died, but no matter what …
      That’s really good news.  When you – or your team – doesn’t make the final four, when you work and suffer toward a goal you never achieve, when the dreams you dream really don’t come true, still …
      The great wonder of the universe is that it supports life.  It is not put off by even the greatest of disasters.  Whatever happened to Jesus – whatever happens to us – life goes on.
- Art Morgan