Resurrection in Dark Places

April 5, 2021

Scripture

Later on that day, the disciples had gathered together, but, fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, “Peace to you.” Then he showed them his hands and side. The disciples, seeing the Master with their own eyes, were exuberant. Jesus repeated his greeting: “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you.” Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” (John 20:19-23 MSG)

Resurrection in Dark Places

My first experience of speaking to an audience alongside an interpreter happened in what was then called Rangoon, Burma at a church of the Karen people. That was 1979 but I’ve never forgotten the experience or the people. A year later one of the other members of the team that night joined me in Zambia for some youth leadership teaching. He was a gifted and experienced communicator from India and after hearing me speak in Zambia his compliment was: “I knew you had to be better than you were in Rangoon”.

The Karen ethnic minority in Myanmar are suffering. I’ve been thinking of them as we declare “Christ is Risen” and wondering if some of those who endured my sermon in 1979 are suffering the much greater indignity of displacement in seeking safety across the Thai border. As they escaped bombardment, did they gather in caves and camps to declare the risen Jesus in their midst? Do the generals perpetrating the attacks hear and know this as a message that one day justice will be done?

The Karen is one of hundreds of groups of people who celebrated Easter in restricted and dangerous settings, knowing the Suffering One now walks with them the road of their suffering. Resurrection gives us hope for the victim and the perpetrator to one day be reconciled to God and one another.

A Prayer for Today

Where there is separation, there is pain. And where there is pain, there is story. And where there is story, there is understanding, and misunderstanding, listening and not listening. May we − separated peoples, estranged strangers, unfriended families, divided communities − turn toward each other, and turn toward our stories, with understanding and listening, with argument and acceptance, with challenge, change and consolation. Because if God is to be found, God will be found in the space between. Amen.

(Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, Padraig O Tuama)