Everyone has had rumors spread about them. These childish antics usually take place in high school, but unfortunately gossip is a nasty habit that carries well into adulthood. Rumors about me have labeled me weak, immature, inconsiderate, unappreciative, a snob, and much more. I urge you not to believe any of it, not because I haven’t been all of those things and more but because I have been forgiven for sometimes being exactly that. Easter is in six days and regardless of your religious affiliation, or not, one of the oldest stories ever told can have meaning for you.

As the familiar story of Christmas reminds us, Christians believe that God came to Earth and took human form. In one the many mysteries of the faith, He became fully man and fully God. He was also God, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect unison, the Holy Trinity. Jesus fulfilled prophecy during His lifetime and did so to the end, suffering a horrific death. As God, He knew this was going to happen and as man, He pleaded for the suffering to pass from Him. As man, He suffered more than any human would ever endure. He was beaten, crucified, and bore the sins of the entire human existence for all time. As God He chose forgiveness instead of vengeance choosing to utter the words, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” in one of His last breaths. I know, this is sounding like a sermon but we need to be reminded that the Christian message is and needs to remain about forgiveness and sacrificial love as demonstrated in the Easter story. Often times we want to run our own agendas and forget the Easter message the other 364 days of the year. Christ did not say in His last breath, “forgive everyone except (insert name here)”. He made no exemptions and washed it all away. ALL of it. He took those moments when I was weak, narrow-minded, unforgiving, and sometimes ungrateful and forgave me, all I had to do was ask. I am comforted by this story because it can speak to everyone. True love is looking past all those imperfections and seeing others for who they truly are and what they desire to be. Unlike those truths and rumors about me, He knows me well enough to know the desires of my heart and gives me those desires even when I am unworthy because He loves me.

Yes, I believe in God who chose to live a meager existence, even in death by humbling Himself as man and accepting a fate that would result in Him ridiculed, beaten, and hanging helplessly to a cross. He accepted what He was given even when He could see exactly what it meant, even when He had the power to stop it. You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate a man who lived no more than a meager existence, that accepted a sentence He did not deserve, because He loved humanity so much. We all have been given sentences we don’t deserve. I know I have but I choose to follow His example and accept it all the way to the end, even if it means to death because someone did that for me. I am also going keep trying to freely forgive others, and even myself, when I have been hurt because He offered forgiveness to the very people who chose to nail him to a piece of wood.

So I ask you to stop listening to rumors about me, each other, and Christ and see humanity and faith for what it really is; humbling, forgiving and life changing. It’s about time we stop looking at those bruises and scars we all bare and see us how we were seen over two thousand years ago, a beautiful work of creation deserving of the greatest forgiveness and love. The next time you don’t think someone, including yourself, is worth a kind word, or even forgiveness, there is a God who placed extraordinary value on each person, so much so He died to prove His love.

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