But the resurrection without the crucifixion is empty optimism, an optimism that gives credence to Freud’s notion that wishful thinking is the sum and substance of our faith. Include the crucifixion – and our role in that bloody moment – and the whole picture changes.

By participating in the liturgy, we’re doing more than “attending a service.” We are entering a story – a story in which we also play a role. We are the people who have indeed been gathered. We are the people who share in God’s very life. We are the people sent forth to proclaim God’s story and to invite people into the grand story.

The Old Testament does, in fact, seem to make a distinction between the life of a child and the life of a fetus.

I sometimes wonder whether our churches – living as we do in American death-denying culture, relentlessly smiling through our praise choruses – are inadvertently helping people live not as much in hope as in denial.

To love with expectations is, in the end, an oppressive, driven thing, and people know it when they receive it. To love as God loves us – in freedom and with no strings attached – is a way to grant others a liberating gift.

God’s love for us is uncoerced and so freely given that it does not demand a response. But so freely is it given that it creates freedom in the recipient, so that our response is not one of obligation or duty, nor the returning of a favor, but uncoerced love.

The cost of discipleship is to live the life God has given us, serving in mundane ways the people he’s put in our path.

To love with expectations is, in the end, an oppressive, driven thing, and people know it when they receive it.

The Christian life does not just evolve. It also requires specific decisions and public commitments to deepen our faith and obedience.

But the resurrection without the crucifixion is empty optimism, an optimism that gives credence to Freud's notion that wishful thinking is the sum and substance of our faith. Include the crucifixion--and our role in that bloody moment--and the whole picture changes.