Dying for sins?

(The NaPoWriMo.net prompt for the day is to write what's called a "fourteener". The site and a Wikipedia entry on the subject define "fourteeners" as poems that contain an unspecified number of lines, with each line consisting of fourteen syllables. The form was popular in England during the 16th and 17th centuries, and is especially suited to narrative poetry. I have been thinking about the day -- Good Friday -- and the weekend of Passover (for Jews) and Easter (for Christians, of the non-Orthodox Eastern lineages), and how this particular weekend might hold some philosophical value to those who do not necessarily affiliate with faith.)



The time of sacrifice began forty days earlier
with Lent, and the calling to give something up for a time.
Maybe chocolate, maybe wine, maybe a bad habit
accrued over years. It was about doing more, having less
and seeing the good in all. Or maybe not. I am not
a religious person, but I like Lent. I like letting
go of things that no longer serve a reasonable whim.
Lent brings on a time of cleaning and clearing out old dust.
Sunday palms graced churches for reasons that those not born in
by-the-book homes fathom. But the effect is delightful
in contrast with the somber tones that settle in Thursday,
as it is recalled that a man was arrested and then
sentenced for the sin of being a social radical.
Dragged through streets, whipped, denied drink, then nailed to a high wood cross,
the man died. That much is fact. The rest is belief and faith.
He might have risen from death. People reported sightings,
even conversations. It doesn't matter. He left us
a legacy that has been distorted. We only learn
that "Christ died for our sins," that we are forgiven of sin.
We are told by the by-the-book people to hate others,
in the name of the man who died for us. That is the sin.
We forget that perhaps this guy died for his politics,
like black youth who face off with police, for committing crimes
of wanting acceptance and a place in a society
that preaches hate for them, and upholds white supremacy
and fears social radicals. Can we celebrate the man
not for dying for sins but instead for offering us
a way to create a fairer, safer, and richer world?