Betrayal, torture, death and resurrection
Lessons on love, hope and life for the Pacific at Easter
WE are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.” (Mark 10:33)
This weekend is the holiest of seasons for the Christian community around the world. It marks the end of the season of Lent, a sixweek journey of spiritual renewal as we seek to follow Christ’s will more faithfully. This time of reflection and revival helps us to “see” in new ways, inviting us to respond out of love and not fear.
Throughout the week there have been special services and church programs in most churches across the country. Thursday to Sunday morning mark the deepest spiritual time of the Christian community with Holy Thursday’s commemoration of the Lord’s Supper that marks the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples, marking the establishment of the celebration of the Eucharist (or Mass). Good Friday is marked with fasting and prayer as a way to remember Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. Holy Saturday is meant to be a quiet day, remembering the empty space that was present for the disciples of Jesus after his death and before his resurrection. They did not expect the resurrection and so were left in a place of grief. Catholic, Anglican and a number of other communities celebrate the Easter Vigil on the night of Holy Saturday to mark the night when Jesus rose from the dead. For Methodists and others, this is celebrated with dawn services to commemorate the discovery of the resurrection by the female disciples of Jesus. In both these commemorations it is that great victory over sin and death that the community celebrates as humanity is invited into that same trajectory through death to life.
Between the Last Supper on Thursday evening and the Resurrection on late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, tortured, abused, and brutally executed.
This past week the Pacific community has received with deep distress and outrage, the news of the arbitrary detainment and horrific torture of three indigenous Melanesian men of West Papua by Indonesian security forces, resulting in the brutal death of one of the three. While the incident took place in February, videos of this horrific and inhumane event were only able to be released late last week. These were husbands, fathers, sons, human beings, treated worse than animals.
For Pacific Christians and all who call the Pacific home, as we reflect on the ongoing violence in the world in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere; this terrible crime in one of our Pacific communities brings home to us the brutal suffering of Jesus, who came that we “may have life, and have it in abundance.” (John 10:10) The only thing the people of West Papua seek is the opportunity for life in abundance in their own land. They seek to live out in their land, the declaration made by Jesus, in his own hometown of Nazareth:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (Luke 4:18-19).
As Christians commemorate the resurrection of Jesus, symbolising the restoration of relationship between God and humankind, we must reflect as renewed and redeemed Children of God on how we strive for peace, compassion, love and justice not just in our community and country but in our region, where sisters and brothers who still live under regimes of fear, violence and abuse of people and land seek for signs of hope that they are loved, and that life, not death, will have the final say and that peace and justice are not just words found in the Bible but have meaning and truth in the world today.
This Sunday in Fiji, the Fiji Council of Churches will commemorate “Resurrection Sunday” with an ecumenical/interdenominational service at the Lautoka Methodist Mission School at 3pm. The key speaker will be the President of the Methodist Church in Fiji, Reverend Dr Semisi Turagavou.
■ REVEREND JAMES SHRI BHAGWAN is serving his second term as General Secretary of Pacific Conference of Churches. With a membership of 35 mainline protestant and Catholic churches and 11 national councils of churches, the Pacific Conference of Churches has been the peak ecumenical (interdenominational) body in Oceania for the last 6 decades. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not of this newspaper.