"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Louis A. Markos

Dear ___________________,

I love you. No, I'm not just saying that; I really mean it. I love you. I know you've heard other people say that to you before, and they didn't really mean it. What they meant was:

I'll love you as long as you make me happy, or,

I love you 'cause I just have to have a boyfriend, and I guess you'll do, or,

I love you 'cause you're pretty and you make me look good in front of my friends.

But I really love you. I love you. You are valuable to me, special, precious. I love you right now, as you are, where you are at. Yes, I love also the person that I know you can become, but not because I have this unrealistic, idolatrous picture of you in my mind.

You see, one of the reasons I love you is that I know you. I really do know what you are capable of. And I don't mean that just in terms of grades or jobs or talents or money: I mean that in terms of goodness, of joy, of integrity, of peace. I'm not like one of those guys who expects his girlfriend to evolve into a perfect wife; what I want is to see you grow into a full human being, into the man or woman I created you to be. And if you'll let me, that's just what I want to do with your life.

And I can do it, not just because I love you, not just because I know you, but because above all else I understand you. Oh yeah, you've heard that one too. You've heard people say in a smug way that they know exactly what you're going through; you've heard your parents say (just before they say "no") that they really know how you feel and that they can identify completely; you've even heard politicians try to convince you that they feel your pain. And, yes, at times, there really are people who sympathize and even empathize with your struggles and sufferings. But how can they really understand? Think about it; the only way they could really understand is if they could become you for a day, could live in your skin, could see and experience the world as you do.

Well, my love, that is what Easter is all about. So great was my desire to understand you fully that I chose to become exactly like you, to wear you skin, to become a man in the fullest, most radical sense. I left myself no "easy outs." All the pains and the indignities, all the fevers and fatigues, all the stubbed toes and upset stomachs and pounding headaches: I experienced them all. And most important: I can understand you because I myself was misunderstood. Your loneliness, your frustration, even your rage against the system: I suffered it all. It began when I was old enough to understand all the gossip: that my parents had "had to get married"; that their oldest son (me) was a bastard. And when I began my active ministry, when I set out with high hopes to heal mankind and bring them the Word of Life, my own hometown tried to kill me. They called me a blasphemer and an enemy of Israel. Even my own family rejected me; they called me crazy and tried to rush me out of town. And then there were the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. When I was just a boy and tried to teach them about the Law at my Father's Temple, they thought I was cute, a real child prodigy. But when I got older, they only saw me as a threat. I so much wanted to work with them — after all they knew the Scriptures better than anyone else — but at every step of the way they shouted down my teachings.

And then there was that last week. I know most of you think the worst part was the pain of Crucifixion, but you're wrong. It was the betrayal, the humiliation, the public spectacle of it all. And when even the Father turned his head away from me, when he too rejected me in that awful moment when I became Sin, in that terrible, crushing, heart-wrenching moment when I became a Curse . . . no, the physical pain was the least of it: it was the emotional and spiritual devastation, the utter and absolute isolation of those final hours that nearly tore me apart. You children of the second millennium speak so glibly of existential despair; on that terrible day, I not only experienced it: I became it.

So you see, my love, I do understand you. All I ask is that the next time you're hurt or abandoned, the next time a friend turns on you or a loved one cuts you down, that you will come to me, the Man of Sorrows. We shall sit and weep together, and then, when we are done, rise up and join the eternal feast in the glorious House of my Father.

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