By Jason Miller

Dedicated to Bobbie L.

4/3/08

In the sermon just minutes before his death, Archbishop Oscar Romero (a man who truly practiced the teachings of Christ) reminded his congregation of the parable of the wheat. “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grains of wheat that dies. It only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies We know that every effort to improve society, above all when society is so full of injustice and sin, is an effort that God blesses; that God wants; that God demands of us. I am bound, as a pastor, by divine command to give my life for those whom I love, and that is all Salvadoreans, even those who are going to kill me.”

 I don’t know what you learned from your parents about the Easter story that is at the center of Christianity’s “highest holy day,” but I’ll wager that it was probably not the one you are about to read. It might prompt an “Oh yes, that’s the Easter story I learned,” but I doubt that it will.