It is an old story but worth repeating.

A wise old rabbi named Sasha was nearing death. He grew fretful and troubled. His friends chided him.

"Are you afraid that God will damn you for not being Moses?"

"No," replied the insightful rabbi. "I am afraid I will be damned for not being Sasha."

Christianity is about being fully human.

Nothing depresses me more than the tendency we have for denying our humanness by denying the human face of God.

What happened so long ago on that first Easter Day was the culmination of a lifetime of being fully human.

It was not a pretense but a proclamation.

"This is what it means to live!" proclaimed God in Jesus.

"It is a life of love, forgiveness, service, sacrifice. It is a life that is not just mine. It is yours."

To be a Christian is to embrace the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. It is to acknowledge that Jesus not only followed this wondrous path of living for others but calls us to follow, as well.

To spend our lives focused on ourselves, to be caught up in the senseless race for possessions and things, to relegate our religion to nothing but a concern for the hereafter, is to miss out on the gift that God has given in the here and now.

It is the gift of Christ.

It is the gift of living for others.

It is the gift of being fully alive.