Every Spring, the deadlines of the world fall at our feet. Schools are in the midst of preparing for finals, work projects are coming due, and the IRS is pining for our W2s. Each year, on a random Spring weekend, Easter occurs. I have had the sense that amid the yearly transitional chaos, Easter leaves me as quickly as it came, being a staple of rewatching Risen and eating too much chocolate. With this cyclical race through time, I don't feel I truly wrap my head around the sacrifice Jesus made for me. It feels too big to comprehend. It leaves me feeling as if I could never understand. Can we ever appreciate the gift we are given if it won’t even fit through the doorway of our understanding? Is its meaning doomed to sit on our mantlepiece within our Bibles? Or as a verse plastered on a Homegood plaque? It wasn't till recently that I began to see beyond the bright pastel colors of the season to find what I had been missing.
Perfection is praised as a worldwide virtue. We use it as a humble brag when people ask about our failings. “Well, I am just a bit of a perfectionist! Tehe.” I am almost positive that is how I responded in my first interview to being asked what my biggest weakness was(I am surprised the employer didn't audibly eye-roll). We love to perfect any art or craft until it becomes a predictable science. We love this because not only can we control and forecast the world of our craft, but we reach a sense of solvency. Gaining a marking of 100% correct means we do not have to worry about the mistakes or the debts that come with mere excellence. It is less messy because there is no cleanup.
For years, I had the sense that life was a perfection game. If I can get a 4.0 GPA, it's going to unlock a door for me! If I can read more books, I will find the smartness that lies deep within! Or my favorite one, if I can sin LESS maybe I can reach TRUE sanctification! After all, since sin is missing the mark, the lack of sinning evidently meant perfection, right? In actuality, the lack of sinning does not mean perfection. It just means not sinning. It is neither for nor against God. I was not chasing perfection, I was chasing a void.
"I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." Philippians 3:10-11
I was getting pretty good at achieving the void. You could only see a few wrinkles and twitches in my right eye when you asked how life was going. It was lifeless work, but for a fleeting moment when my work was praised as "perfect", I could feel my ego transform into a ball of glowing glee. It didn't last long, but just as with any drug, my chase for the high intensified. This didn’t better my relationship with the Lord, making me more in tune with His will. In fact, God saw my game and sat down opposite the table from me to play. Not that I was such a worthy opponent, but because I was treating God like an adversary. So, as a father plays with His child, he began to indulge me. Yet, instead of letting me win, He knew better.
God moved his pieces. Not too long after, my life spun on its axis. They say there are no degrees of sin, but when faced with a true mistake in family and relationships, it feels that the arrow is pointing to the dark red portion of the morality meter. As much as I knew I was a sinful creature growing up, I couldn’t wrap my head around making choices that could ultimately hurt the people I love. It was not in the plan, wasn’t sketched in the blueprints, and certainly wasn’t devised. Since my goal growing up was to always be helpful, loving, and serving to the people around me, I fell into an internal pit of languishing failure when that goal failed en masse. When my work, both professional and personal, began to receive failing marks, I fell into a pit of suffocating tar called sin. I believe I commenced what they call a pity party.
"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own." Phillipians 3:12
Jesus was and is a perfect being. When Jesus was raised upon the cross, hanging in what I can only imagine was piercing physical agony, he was carrying the weight of imperfection. Sin is the epitome of imperfection. It is not perfect. It tears down what is good. At that moment, I can only believe that as our sins covered him, he became the antithesis of his being. For a moment, he became imperfection. The imperfection is what He wouldn’t stand for.
Being raised Christian, you would think this thought would be second nature, but in the past couple of years, His third-day resurrection has become a revelation in my life.
As I curled up on the floor, having inadvertently lost a match to God(didn't even realize I was playing Him because I was so focused on the pieces), Jesus touched my arm in understanding. It wasn’t about perfection. It wasn’t about flawlessness. It wasn’t about being more than I was. It was about knowing Him in the most vulnerable and loving sense. Until I could step off my self-imposed playing field, I wasn't able to truly know His heart for me. I could never accept His love until I asked for the very thing He wanted to give me. When I asked, I finally received it. He redeemed me. That is Easter.
I don’t strive for perfection anymore. Or let's say, I put away the chessboard more quickly. Beyond perfection, I am getting ready for the unpredictable instead of the planned, the creation instead of the equations, and Him above all else. If I fall into imperfection, I am learning to turn to my Father and ask for a hand. He doesn't care about the lack of sin. He cares about the status of our hearts. If we are chasing the name of Jesus, the shedding of sin is a natural byproduct of the process. In that process, He refines us until our perfection becomes irrelevant and His glory becomes the celebration of our lives.
I chew bit by bit the meaning of His love for me, deriving more joy from the splendor of a random Sunday in the middle of Spring. Happy Easter everyone! He has risen!
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