One of the points made pretty clearly in the crucifixion story is that Jesus never claimed to be an earthly king. Jesus' whole mission was spiritual. The relationship we're to have is a spiritual one, the journey to live a better life, a spiritual one, and the rewards, also, are spiritual.

We spend a lot of time worrying about dogma, thinking we ought to do things exactly as they were done 2,000 years ago and recorded in a book. Islam does that. They wrote a book, declared it cannot be change, no further prophets will come to offer new insight, and that they should live exactly as a degenerate Bedouin raider who raped and pillaged and slaughtered his way across the Arabian peninsula 1,400 years ago. They call it Sharia. And patriots reject it at totally inconsistent with the US Constitution. We refuse to live under such rules. Dogma doesn't make a thing right. The fact that it was done that way a long time ago doesn't make a thing right. Christianity is not about replicating a 2,000 year old Roman-Jewish provincial experience.

Early church leaders understood this, and today, we have over 2 billion people on this planet who all profess Christ as their Lord and Savior. Christianity is the most widely followed religion in the world and there are thousands of denomination, variations in the precise dogmatic details of how we worship. But I'd argue that a Russian Orthodox Christian is every bit as sincere in his faith in Jesus, and his desire to live as God directs as a firebrand Southern Baptist preacher or a Catholic nun. Christ's message is a spiritual message. It's an aspirational message. "I know you're not perfect. You never will be. I'll die for your sins and take them upon me if you will try to live a good life. Pursue perfection knowing that you'll falter. Follow God's commandments and Christ's example as close as you can, and yours will be the Kingdom of Heaven."

I was raised Mormon and I have my issues with the Church, but the core message is the same, the core pursuit of Jesus' message transcends the mistakes of the faithful (or the unfaithful). You can argue with me, but that's the wisdom I think we're supposed to glean from this Bronze Age book about a carpenter that we hold so dearly. That's what I choose to celebrate today.

Luke 23: 52-56 lays out the timeline:

Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54 It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.