Bloody Cross, Bloody mess: Making sense of the senseless

Have you ever had the feeling that everything is going to work out just fine? You know, the sense that in the midst of your pain it will all come together for good. I know that sense, that feeling. It doesnt happen very often but when it does it just feels, well, for lack of a better word, Divine. I get this sense that this is exactly what the Jesus story is about. More than being a story of bloody sacrifice it is a story of "knowing" that everything will work out fine. The story doesnt deny pain or try to gloss over the struggle. What it does do for me is acknowledge that in the midst of this pain we can be different. We can rise above our pettiness, hurts, anger and resentments. The story shows a man who has almost complete confidence in the fact that in the grand scheme of things, he's OK. He is willing to show us by example how to live our lives and then with the ultimate conviction he is willing to die for it. He has figured out that there is an eternal life, that there is more than what we can see or touch. Now remember there are some moments when the doubt creeps in, afterall he is human like you or I. Yet in his awareness of safety he is able to rise above those doubts and show us another way. In the story we see someone care for others, love his enemies, take part in our struggles. And while doing all of this not allowing himself to partake in the nastiness that this life can also offer. I see so often in this world, people who are committed to seeing life from its painful parts, in the Jesus story I see one who decided to see the good parts and acknowledge that we do have life abundantly even when our bodies die.