Blood Money

It’s almost Good Friday and Easter again! Over the years, new little faces have appeared at our table while wrinkled faces are missing, having gone to a better place where they wait for the family to reassemble.

I love to celebrate holidays, especially Christmas and Easter, even though political correctness has sought to stamp out those words with “winter break” and “spring break”.

Further, if political correctness doesn’t completely eradicate the two holidays, then a secular society adds a replacement strategy—Santa and the Easter Bunny. That’s an extremely effective strategy as it appeals to kids’ (and adults’) self-seeking desires. Words like “Praise you Lord for your birth, death, and resurrection” are easily replaced by “Gimmee, gimmee.”

It has been easy to create an entitlement attitude in young people. Look around. What do you see? I see a society that is the result of generations of “gimmee.” I see kids with so many toys they can’t walk through their house still express expectations of new stuff for every holiday. I see adults with so many toys in their houses and garages that their cars have to sit outside.

Have we, like Judas, for a few shiny baubles sold the very Lord who loved us and gave us the greatest gift?

Acts 4:10-12 states, “It is by the NAME of Jesus Christ of Nazareth…there is NO OTHER NAME under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Not the name of “spring break,” not Santa Claus, not the Easter Bunny.

Some years ago, I heard a song that I thought commented on the greed patrol led by Judas Iscariot. I changed a few words to protect the, well, whatever.

♫ Hey there, friend Judas
That’s what I used to call you
They tell me you want me
But I hear they’ve got you
They made you an offer
Of a bag full of silver
Paid you some money
To sell them my blood.

You say, it’s not about me
And it’s not about you
Or the good and the bad times
We’ve both been through
When the lines between brothers
And justice have changed
You do what you've got to
You can't walk away

I wonder what would have happened
If you’d seen it plain
That I was the hero
Would things be the same
I would have traded
My life for your own life
I came to pay
The debt in your place.

Blood money, that’s what they call it
But money for blood,
That’s no fair exchange
Blood money bought and then sold you
Your conscious is all you
Can take to your grave. ♫
Borrowed from Jon Bon Jovi