For the past several months, I’ve been thinking about my relationship with Jesus. I keep coming back to a line from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” where Lucy asks if Aslan is “safe.” Mr. Beaver laughs and says, “Safe? Of course he isn’t safe! But he’s good.” 1/

Over the past year or so, Jesus has seemed less “safe.” My faults—my bigotry, my jealousy, my anger, my apathy—are no longer hidden up in Christ. Instead, Jesus has made them even more evident, and to see yourself, even “through a glass darkly” is at the very least unpleasant. 2/

But Jesus, while no longer “safe” for me, keeps telling me of his goodness. He asks me to tear down the mighty, to feed the hungry with good things, to consider the lilies in the field, to pick up my cross and follow a desert prophet whose yoke is easy and his burden light. 3/

On this Easter Sunday, I am more than ever inspired to be good, because being safe was never an option. My privilege may have made it seem that way, but no longer. As the angels in Acts 1 ask, “Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” 4/

Instead of looking up, I’m trying harder than I ever have to look around. And Jesus promised he’d be there—in the hungry, in the sick, in the naked, in the imprisoned. I wait in the garden, at the well, by the cross, and I hope he’ll come to me. Happy Easter, friends. /Fin