Hedging Our Bets

WOULDN'T IT BE WONDERFUL to have a lifetime free pass to sin at will, to know in advance that all of our transgressions, no matter how heinous, would be forgiven, that someone else would accept, a priori, responsibility for all our misbehavior? Who wouldn't be grateful for such an arrangement, even if it involved someone else being tortured and murdered? Little wonder that two billion people are members of the Christian flock, even if said flock is in a continuous state of internal warfare. God, accordingly, forgives all sinners through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the lamb of God. Much of the intra-flockial warfare concerns the method by which one becomes a member of the flock, but the acceptance of Christ as one's personal savior is the common thread which unites, precariously, the two billion. If the thought crosses your mind that an omnipotent God more easily and painlessly could have merely chosen to forgive everyone, without ceremony, without the bloody mess, banish it. The phony trial happened, the murder was committed, and we are left with the task of making it significant beyond mere homicide. When someone we love dies, significance must be attached to it. We further alleviate our pain and guilt by bringing the murder victim back from the dead, which, on the surface, would seem to make the sacrifice far less meaningful. Most cartoon characters, Superman included, have been brought back from the dead, with great profit. At the very top of the pyramid of the flock is to be found the profit, where profit always resides. Even in a universal priesthood of all believers there it stands, the archetypal pyramid, the truest believers, the biggest sheep, atop. We are told to accept responsibility for our actions; the Christian faith permits us to hedge our bets.