Easter's answer to terrorism

     The current situation of terrorism has many on edge and fearful of what will come next. That encourages us to give in to messages of safety through attacks and restrictions on others. However, there are lessons in the gospel against these types of reactions. You see, the Jews were under two different and powerful threats: the Romans who could take their freedom and their lives and the Jewish establishment who could take away their identity and their soul.
     Jesus first disarms the Jewish establishment of their power through the forgiveness of sins, a restoration of those formerly outside of their religious tribe. His healing of the sick began with a pardon of sin. When questioned,  he answered which was more, important, not the physical healing but the spiritual one. As we can atrest, it is the psychological scars that wound us greater than the physical ones.
    Then he confronted the Roman power of life and death. He modeled the courage of facing the cross that his disciples in turn followed. It was not the pain and death, it was and is the fear of pain and death. The conquering of the fear in the Garden of Gethsemane was the preface to the conquering of the social status quo.
     In the miltary, a sizable percentage of the training is the overcoming of personal fears. At the outset of our involvement in the Second World War, the admonition was that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. In scripture, Paul clarifies that our war is not of flesh and blood but one of spirit. Will we allow fear to turn us away from being the better people, the more loving, the more faithful, the more hopeful people that we can be?