REBEL.

Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, 

must have been a rebel as well as a king.

--G.K. Chesterton.

When someone says the word rebel, one of the people I instantly think of is my brother, Rick. In him, I always had an example of what would happen if I broke rules, pushed boundaries, and challenged limits. The consequences weren't pretty. I quietly watched as he provoked and tested my parents, his teachers, or any authority figure for that matter. I watched and wondered, WHEN WILL HE EVER LEARN?  

But secretly, I admired him. He got into a ton of trouble and caused a lot of conflict, but if he was guilty of anything, it certainly wasn't playing it safe or trying to be somebody or something that he was not. He had a strong voice and presence. He didn't seem to be driven by the affirmation or approval of others. He wasn't afraid to challenge the status quo. For me, the goody-goody, people-pleasing little sister, I often wished I could be a little more like him.

little Lib and rebel Rick.

In 2003, I left home and joined the military, and I soon came to realize that there was a rebellious streak even in me, the quintessential good girl. I suppose it took being strangulated by endless lists of military rules and regulations to draw out the latent rebel hiding inside. I never conspicuously challenged military regulations, but I certainly pressed the limits when I thought I could, which usually took the form of coming to work in civilian clothes before changing into my scrubs, skipping Commander's Calls, or showing up late when I knew how important it was to be on time. It all just seemed like a lot of pomp and circumstance to me.

rebel Lib with her gat.

My rebellious qualities have continued to evolve. (Perhaps in my adulthood I'm trying to make up for lost time.) I don't want to be main-stream or conform to the status quo. I resist labels. If someone tells me I need to do something, I don't want to do it. I'm horribly passive aggressive because I'm too scared to outwardly cause conflict and I care too much about what people think of me. Passive resistance feels safer. 

There have been many Sundays past when I've left church angry because it seems so contrived, so routine, so dulled down, so fake. After Tess was born, we stopped going to church altogether for over a year and I didn't miss it. I felt pretty justified in my revolt. When we joined our church in California almost two years ago, I was asked several times if I wanted to get baptized--a standard they have for all church members--and I said "no" (by maturely ignoring their offers). I knew I wanted to do it when I was ready--not just to fulfill a church requirement. I'd been a Christian for over 15 years, so it annoyed me that it was suddenly a big deal.  

Rebel Rd.  HOLLA!

I know my rebellious side has not always, or ever, been fruitful. It's been linked to a lot of cynicism and pride and pessimism. I've felt pretty justified in my small revolts over the years, but my rebellion was rarely a result of a super-spiritual connection to God. To use the cliché, I was a rebel without a cause, and to tell you the truth, I'm afraid my little revolts have been puny and inconsequential.

Over the last few months, I've been reading straight through the Gospels.  I decided to do this in the wake of reading Crazy Love and realizing that perhaps I didn't know Jesus as well as I thought I did.  I finished John a few days ago.

During my reading, one of the big things that struck me about Jesus was how much of a rebel He was.  He was constantly pushing the limits and pissing off the religious authorities.  He called a spade a spade and didn't sugar coat anything.  He was witty and edgy. He cut through all the crap and spoke plain truth while everyone else was playing games. He didn't care what people thought of Him...only what His Father thought.  He was in sync 100% with God, and that usually translated to a lot of conflict, disruption, confusion, and commotion when it came to his interactions with people...to the point that many people wanted him dead. 

He was a rebel WITH a cause.

He was THE Rebel with THE Cause.

I mean, let's face it.  Jesus was kind of a bad ass. It seems silly that people put lace covers on their Bibles. There is nothing lacy about Jesus. Maybe leather and spikes would be more appropriate for what He represented?

And what strikes me about Christ is the perfect balance of rebellion and submission that He lived:

Perfect submission to the Top-Dog, His Father.

Perfect rebellion against evil and the whack effects of sin.

Christ was a rebel, but that was a mere by-product of His perfect intimacy with the Father.  He was a rebel because He represented pure light in a world of darkness.  His rebellion changed the world forever because He was in perfect submission to THE true source of Life and Light and Hope and Beauty and Goodness.

He rebelled against all the things we hate in life...arrogance, religion, greed, pride, legalism, materialism, laziness, hypocrisy, sickness, selfishness, poverty, hatred, fear, and shame...to mention a few.  And when He died on the cross, He set us free from all of these things, because above all, He rebelled against DEATH and DEFEATED it FOREVER. And because of this, we can LIVE FOREVER if we follow Him. 

Like I said, He's a bad ass.

Every time we chose Him, we rebel against darkness and fear and we bring a little more light into this world.

So if you reject Christianity because you hate religion and rules and you deem yourself a rebel...think again.

One of my favorite authors is G.K. Chesterton, and there's a quote from his book Orthodoxy that I think of every Easter. It seems in line with this post, so I'd like to share it with you...

Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point--and does not break. 

In this indeed I approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss...But in that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It is written, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism. 

When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world...They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay...but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.

Disturbing?  Yes...I think so.  Awesome?  To be sure.

And He went through all of it because He LOVES us and wants us to have LIFE and have it to the FULL.

Meek. Mild. As If.

Are you a rebel?  What are you rebelling against?  What cause are you rebelling for?

HAPPY EASTER.  

HE. IS. RISEN.