Jesus as Han Solo

 I always think of Han Solo as the ultimate independent. You have the Empire and rebels with all their rules and procedures and prejudices. Han is just trying to make a living, trading on the fringes with whoever and whatever. Like in our world, there is a lot of cross-border stuff that goes on because countries with their capitals far, far away have no idea how to make things work in the borderlands.

I was reading this book the other day, The Idolatry of God by Peter Rollins. Most of it is just drone-on to up the word count, but I deduced a few things about Jesus and the Resurrection. 

Jesus was the ultimate outsider.  He just wanted to make things work for everyone, without regard to party politics. He gave up any identity he had in his own religion and the dominant Roman culture and government at the time, because there were just too many rules. Of course, he ran afoul of the Empire. And unlike Han, with the Millennium Falcon, it's hard to do warp speed in sandals on a dusty road.

Crucification was the ultimate identity eraser. The ultimate ghosting. The culture is saying, you're gone, you never were, you were never any good, we won't remember you, you won't be missed. And Jesus decided that it wasn't worth the trouble to resist, so he went back to the ex nihilo, the nothingness, that he came from. 

But he resurrected. Because he had no identity, he could come back. Creatio ex nihilo, creation from nothing. And this happens. Cosmologists have found there are virtual energy fields, even in a vacuum.

So Jesus, the ultimate outsider, can do anything, help anyone, because he has no identity. And hopefully, people learn that lesson. Don't waste the energy to set up and fuel a cultural identity. Just use what energy is available to you to do something, anything. And in the end, you, too, go back to nothingness, the ultimate power source.