F Is For Fair

This has been the first post all week that I had no clue what word I was going to use.  I had several thoughts, ranging from Faith to Frustration to words that are better left unsaid on a blog that's trying hard to stay PG.  But like all good ephiphanies, the word finally came to me in the middle of my morning shower--Fair. 

One of the mantras on repeat at school is that equal isn't always fair.  And while I know that this is intellectually true, some small part of me screams "And why not?"  I want things equal and fair.  I want my friends who are praying for a baby to get one, those who are sick to get well, and the answers to a million big and little prayers to come in the just the way that I have been asking for them because goodness knows that I have all the answers.  (ha!)  But at a conference that was not at all about religious matters, the speaker said that fairness is everyone getting what they need to be successful and that means everyone's paper looks a little different.  There's no place for comparison at the table because what is best for one is not necessarily best for another.  And it is not the students' job to make that call.  It's the teacher's.  Hmmm...couldn't possibly be a lesson in that right?  (God's sense of humor is sometimes too much for me!) 

So on Good Friday, as we mourn the death of Jesus Christ, we wait with hope.  Hope for Sunday morning, for something better, for something more.  And we remember that the cross wasn't a place for fairness.  Jesus died sinless and blameless for our sins, for my sins.  There's nothing fair about that.  But the Cross was necessary for our survival.  If there had been no death, there could be no resurrection. 

One of my fondest childhood church memories is of the Good Friday mass.  If you've never been to one, it's somber and a little strange, but I always waited for the ending with baited breath because I knew that meant Ms. Lewis was about to sing.  And when the time came, her notes rang loud and clear in the pin-drop quiet church:

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh, oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Almost ten years later, I can still hear her voice so clear in my head that it gives me the chills.  No, I wasn't there in the physical sense, but the beatings, the exhaustion, the cruel torture of the cross, He would have done all of that just for me.  Jesus would have done it all for you, too, even if you were the only one to be saved.  Fair didn't even cross His mind.