"violent radicals"?

Palm Sunday and the flow to Easter is the story of a great hope being killed by the power structure.
Jesus rides in and there is a group, a crowd of supporters, who welcome him as the bringer of a new reality. They think he is the messiah, the long awaited hero, the one to rescue Israel from Rome. To bring in a new glory time. They may have had the wrong expectations as to how this kingdom was to be established but they had a great passion for change and for something better.

The established leaders of the synagogue, the business leaders whose economic fortunes were wrapped up in business with Rome, the political leaders who did not want to be put out of their positions of power came together, and with a lots of negative press, with the proper disbursement of money, and a lot of smart arguing with Pilate they got rid of Jesus. "Jesus was not killed by atheism or anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion which is always a deadly mix." (Barbara Brown Taylor)

It is amazing how often that pattern has repeated itself just in my life time.  The March on Washington for Civil Rights was a huge event. The people gathered and were hoping for a better day. They were seeking equal rights and human dignity.  The power structure of white, rich, men wisely made a few concessions, but they bided their time. They plotted and arranged and Dr. King was killed  and the work began to dismantle the concessions made. Even now in 2018 the rights given are being taken away.

The people marched against the war in Vietnam, all they wanted was peace, and the end to a very immoral war,  and the power structured attacked them as "traitors, commies, draft dodgers, unAmericans, and the leaders resisted the marchers until a new President was elected.

This year Women had a march. They want respect. They want the right to have control over their own person. They want equal pay. They want a better life for women. They want to have health care, and the responsibility to make decisions about their reproductive powers.  The old white power structure lashed out and called them names, called the radical feminists, male haters, lead by disgusting lesbians. And the women's health issues are still being made by old white men without any women on the committees.

This Saturday there was a march on Washington and around the country by youth and their friends who only want to live in safety from gun violence.  The power structure immediately went on the attack and called them "violent radicals," claimed the students were being directed by news agencies, adults were making money off the students. All kinds of misinformation; fake posts of photo shopped pictures, death threats to the student leaders.

And so it goes there are marches, like Palm Sunday, like march for Gun safety, that have good, positive, helpful, healthy, needed reforms as their goal, and in response to those pushes the "military-industrial-religious-wealthy 1%ers respond by attacking, those who are sure they know the mind of God, denying and threatening and opposing the positive because it would disturb their comfortable arrangement.

Easter is the way God indicated which side of these parades She is on.