Easter Reflection

I grew up in Jamaica, and Easter was a big deal.

Every year, my church would host a spectacular event called a cantata. We formed a mass choir. We put on an Easter play. There was praise dance. It was a magnificent moment every Good Friday. Oh, the memories! 

Those experiences were formative for me. 

And while I approach faith and spiritual things a bit differently these days, every Easter still brings me back to a longing for the cantata of my childhood. There was something about the fullness of it; something about the weight of the story and the beauty of the expression that still sits with me. 

And so the Easter story, the resurrection story, continues to be powerful for me. 

But I’ve come to understand that you cannot rush to Sunday. 

There are many who struggle to sit in the story of the crucifixion. Even in our songs, we sometimes move too quickly past it. There are gospel songs that begin at the cross, but by the end, we’ve already leapt into resurrection. We shout. We celebrate. We move past the suffering. 

But as a young believer, I came to understand the significance and meaning of the awfulness of the crucifixion. 

Suffering is part of salvation. 
Suffering is part of the human story. 

On the cross, in the crucifixion of Jesus, so much is revealed about the human condition. 

As the story goes, God sends God’s son into the world to die for the sins of humanity. And I will leave the deeper theological debates to those more trained than I am. Because there are real and important questions about what it means to say that God required this kind of sacrifice. 

Those questions are worth exploring. 

But even as we wrestle with theology, there is something undeniable in the story itself. 

God did not make Pontius Pilate condemn Jesus to die. 

The condemnation of Jesus by the state is a human story. 

It is a story about power. 
A story about fear. 
A story about what governments will do when they feel threatened. 

Jesus was, in the eyes of the state, an enemy. 

And it was state power, backed by propaganda, by pressure, by public spectacle that led to his execution. 

That matters. 

And so, as we move into this crucifixion weekend, this most holy of moments in the Christian calendar, we are invited not just to remember what happened to Jesus, but to reflect on what that story reveals about us. 

About our systems. 
About our governments. 

What does it mean that the state killed someone we now call Savior? 

What does it mean that the machinery of government was used to justify that death? 

And what does it mean for us, today, when we see governments still holding the power to condemn, to criminalize, to destroy the lives of everyday people? 

People who are poor. 
People who are marginalized. 
People who, like Jesus, dare to challenge the order of things. 

The crucifixion is not just about what was done to Jesus. 

It is about what is still being done. 

And so, as people of faith and as people of goodwill, we are called not only to remember, but to respond. 

To ask: 

Where are we seeing the state get it wrong? 
Where are people being wrongly accused, wrongly targeted, wrongly punished? 
Where is power being used to harm instead of to heal? 

Because one of the clearest lessons of the cross is this: 

Governments are not always right. 
And governments hold within them the power to ruin the lives of everyday people. 

Easter does not ask us to ignore that truth. 

It asks us to face it. 
To sit in it. 
And then to act. 

This Easter, let us sit in human suffering. 

Let us sit in the ways our government creates the conditions for the suffering and even the crucifixion of so many of our brothers, sisters, and siblings.

And then let us ask: 

What are we called to do? 
How are we called to respond? 
And who must we become in this moment?

With love this Easter,

Keron Blair
Temporary Acting Executive Director