As we embrace the Lord’s Passion, let us share in His agony – and the pain of the persecuted in the world today
By Benedict Rogers in UCA News
Today, Maundy Thursday, Christians around the world enter into the Easter Triduum, in which we reflect on the last days of the life of Jesus Christ, his brutal death, and his resurrection.
We will witness the re-enactment of the scene when Christ washed his disciples’ feet. In churches of all traditions around the world, priests will wash the feet of a select number of worshippers, in an act designed to emulate Christ’s example of humility and service.
Tomorrow, Good Friday, we will remember the Passion of Christ — his arrest, trial, torture, and crucifixion.
As a human rights activist and Catholic, I often reflect on this as the world’s best-known arbitrary arrest, its most unjust trial, its most egregious torture, and its most outrageous execution.
If the United Nations had existed in AD 30, there would likely have been a case filed with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, appeals made to UN special rapporteurs, representations made by ambassadors to Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who presided over Christ’s trial and execution, and perhaps even a UN Human Rights Council resolution.
Activists like me would have been urging parliamentarians around the world to table motions, ask questions, co-sign letters, and exert pressure on the Roman Empire and the chief priests. Caiaphas, the high priest, along with the religious court, the Sanhedrin, as well as Pilate, might even have faced sanctions.
And yet, in the case of Christ’s execution, none of that would have made a difference, because before any of us could have gotten our act together, he rose from the grave.
The empty tomb was first discovered by Mary Magdalene in the early hours of that Sunday. She thought someone had removed the corpse. Then Christ appeared, resurrected.
That is why on Sunday, after reflecting on the passion and pain of his last days, we will celebrate his miraculous return to life at Easter, which, together with Christmas, is the most important Christian festival of the year.
As we look at the world today, there are two messages to take with us from the Easter Triduum.
The first is that there is always hope. If we believe the Easter story, then we accept that no matter how bleak and hopeless a situation may seem, and however much we might despair, nothing is irredeemable. Out of the ashes, a phoenix can rise, and from a brutal death on a cross, new life can spring.
In the smoldering ashes of the world’s conflicts — in Myanmar, Ukraine, or Gaza — lie the embers of resurrection and hope. We just have to look for them.
Resurrection and hope persist even amid the bloodshed in Myanmar, where a genocidal and illicit military junta continues to murder its own people through daily bombardments and massacres. In the face of such brutality, the people of Myanmar have risen up and formed their own people’s defense forces, fighting back against the military junta and building a new, democratic, human rights-respecting Myanmar from the ground up. It is these people’s defense forces, not the military junta, that now control most of Myanmar’s territory, bringing hope for an end to the brutal junta’s rule.
Behind the cruel metal bars of prison cells, where prisoners of conscience are unjustly held and tortured, lie flickers of light that will one day lead to their release.
Whether it is more than 22,000 political prisoners or the over one thousand political prisoners held in Hong Kong, whether it is the thousands in China’s jails and prison camps or those in North Korea’s gulags, Easter offers hope that, however grim their plight may be, there is a chance they may one day be free.
Throughout this Easter Triduum, I will devote special prayers for the release of my friend Jimmy Lai, a 77-year-old British citizen and entrepreneur who has already been in jail in Hong Kong for over four years and could die in prison.
I will also pray for the release of Myanmar’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is approaching her 80th birthday and also faces the prospect of dying in jail.
Additionally, I will pray for all political prisoners unjustly held in both countries and around the world.
The second is the contrary. It is that the Passion of Christ is played out again and again, daily, around the world. His agony, his unjust arrest, his unfair trial, his persecution, flogging, and crucifixion are repeated in every corner of the world.
It is especially pertinent to highlight the persecution of Christians at this time. However, in doing so, let us not forget every other religious or racial community that is currently facing persecution, often escalating to the gravest levels of mass atrocity crimes: the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the persecution of the Uyghur Muslims in China (which has been recognised as a genocide by the independent Uyghur Tribunal and by the past two US administrations and many parliaments), the 75 years of atrocities against Buddhists in Tibet, the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Kim Jong-un’s regime in North Korea, the persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan, Indonesia, and beyond, and Baha’is in Iran and elsewhere, along with many other injustices around Asia and the world.
Yet during this Passiontide, let us remember particularly Christians around the world who are reliving — not merely in symbolic, but in literal and physical terms — the agony of Calvary and the pain of Golgotha.
On Palm Sunday — four days ago — the Myanmar junta bombed and destroyed the Myoma Baptist Church in Mindat, in Myanmar’s predominantly Christian Chin State. It was the third attack in Chin State on church buildings in five days, violating the junta’s declared post-earthquake ceasefire. A few days earlier, on April 8, junta airstrikes hit Christ the King Catholic Church in Falam, and an Assembly of God Church in Mindat was struck the next day.
Hundreds of churches have been bombed, destroyed, damaged, desecrated, or commandeered by the Myanmar military over the past four years since the coup, which overthrew the country’s democratically elected civilian government on Feb. 1, 2021, as have many Buddhist monasteries, Hindu temples, and Muslim mosques.
On top of this, of course, Myanmar is suffering the trauma and tragedy from the earthquake that struck on March 28. Natural disasters do not discriminate along ethnic or religious lines — so thousands of Buddhist pagodas, Islamic mosques, Hindu temples, Christian churches, and other places of worship, along with schools, hospitals, and homes, were devastated by the quake.
The official death toll exceeded 3,600 a week ago — the real figure is likely to be much higher, as rescue efforts remain limited.
My friend Salai Za Uk Ling — an ethnic Chin human rights defender from Myanmar whom I have known for almost two decades — is right to issue what he calls “A Christian call for justice for Myanmar.” This Easter Triduum, I urge readers to reflect on his cry and respond in prayer and practical support.
But as churches were bombed on Palm Sunday in Myanmar, Christians in Ukraine endured a similar onslaught.
At almost the same time that Myanmar’s junta, led by dictator Min Aung Hlaing, was bombing the church in Mindat, Vladimir Putin launched precision-guided ballistic missiles on churches in Sumy, just 50 kilometres from the Russian border. At least 34 people, including 15 children, were killed, and over 100 were injured.
What was their crime? All they were doing was peacefully celebrating Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week. The deadly attack took place at 10:30 a.m. local time, just as congregants were leaving their church services. This was no “mistake,” as claimed by President Donald Trump — the precision-guided missiles hit the target they were intended for.
As the Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, said: “There’s nothing left but to turn to the Lord to defend us, because it seems that no other force is capable of protecting peace and life.”
And as church leaders in Ukraine declared, it appears “nothing is sacred” anymore.
Christians in Myanmar and Ukraine are far from being the only Christians in the world to be facing persecution. In Iraq, ancient Christian communities have virtually disappeared from the country, fleeing for their lives after decades of persecution and attacks by Muslim extremists following the 2003 US invasion.
One only has to study reports from across the world — from China to Cuba, from India to Iran, from Nigeria to Nicaragua, and from Eritrea and Egypt, to know that across the globe, Christians face severe restrictions, discrimination, and persecution. And so do people of other faiths, as well as agnostics and atheists.
Whether or not you have a religious belief, and whatever your particular belief is, this Easter let us unite to champion the right for everyone, everywhere, no exceptions, to choose, practice, share, or change their belief, as outlined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Easter Triduum ought to turn us all into human rights activists, both in outrage at the injustice of the crucifixion and through inspiration from the hope of the resurrection.
As we enter the Easter Triduum and embrace the Lord’s Passion, let us do so with a spirit that combines a sharing in His agony — and the pain of the persecuted in the world today — with the hope that comes from knowing that crucifixion is not the end of the story.
After Good Friday comes Easter Sunday. After the crucifixion comes the resurrection.
Let that be our prayer for our world today.
This article was originally published in UCA News.