The Gospel Truth

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter!  The picture above is one I took last Easter.  We were visiting NY and went to the CLOISTERS (which is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to the European Middle Ages.)  Of course Easter isn't just about Jesus on the cross, but rather the resurrection.  About life AFTER death.  I grew up in a small rural Lutheran Church.  I was a sunday school teacher/church organist while in high school.  At the front of the church on top of the altar was a statue of Jesus holding his hands out showing the nail marks.  Now that I'm older I really appreciate that image of Christ growing up.  Not of a man dying on the cross, but rather a savior saying "I'm back... and I'm HERE for you."

Which leads me to today's post...

I'd like to share with you an amazing book.

LAMB - THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST'S CHILDHOOD PAL by Christopher Moore

A friend first recommended this LAMB to me a few years ago.  I definitely had my doubts about the book at first.  As a Christian, I was afraid it was going to be sacrilegious.  It definitely is not.  If you have an open mind you will find that this book has a lot of heart.

LAMB tells the story of the missing years of the bible, Christ's teenage years.  The book is told through the eyes of Biff, (Christ's childhood friend) who was somehow left out of the bible.  

Once I started reading I was hooked.  The author has written a humorous "work of fiction." More importantly, I found the book very touching.  Joshua (Christ) is trying to figure out his purpose in life.  His friends Biff and Maggie (Mary of Magdala) are there to help him figure it out.  Biff is very rough around the edges.  Yet as Joshua's life on earth ends, Biff wants to protect his friend and doesn't want him to suffer.  I really feel that Christopher Moore captures the heart of Christ (except there may be a few curse words thrown in!)   We really see His human side... His love and compassion.

 

Here's one of my favorite passages where Biff talks about love after he and Joshua meet Maggie for the first time.

"I don't know if now, having lived and died the life of a man, I can write about little-boy love, but remembering it now, it seems the cleanest pain I've known.  Love without desire, or conditions, or limits- a pure and radiant glow in the heart that could make me giddy and sad and glorious all at once.  Where does it go?  Why, in all their experiments, did the Magi never try to capture that purity in a bottle?  Perhaps they couldn't.  Perhaps it is lost to us when we become sexual creatures, and no magic can bring it back.  Perhaps I conly remember it because I spent so long long trying to understand the love that Joshua felt for everyone. "