REV. JOHN JACKSON
By Rev. John Jackson
The silver-haired and sable-skinned orator of Black liberation, Frederick Douglass, once said, “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
It is still amazing to me that after all that has been written and interpreted from the original context of the Bible that many people, especially people of African ancestry, still cling doggedly to the rendering of the Lenten season, Holy Week, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday as purely a spiritual event that was only meant to save souls from a burning in Hell.
I am not saying that the spiritual and life after physical death are not a part of the highest events on the Christian liturgical calendar. I am saying, however, that the belief in Jesus’ crucifixion as atonement for sins is not the major theme of Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday.
The major theme of Jesus’ earthly movement was deliverance from the domination system, the oppression of the Roman Empire on the people of Northeast Africa and the arrogance of the Caesars.
Each Good Friday, there are seven last words services all over the nation, yet what oftentimes gets missed is the very punishment of crucifixion.
Crucifixion could only be carried out by the Romans. Roman citizens could not be crucified by Roman law, and finally, crucifixion was reserved only for revolutionaries and people subversive to the empire of Rome. The penalty that Jesus suffered at Calvary was a political punishment because his movement threatened Imperial sovereignty and Imperial theology. The Resurrection of Jesus was a demonstrative display that Rome’s oppression of God’s people was unacceptable to God and that even death can not stop a movement of people of faith for justice. It was a refuting of Roman ideology that privileged the wealthy over the poor and a reversal where God demonstrates that the most vulnerable are more precious to God than the privileged wealthy class and that the poor have been endowed with resurrection power to press the fight for justice against the empire and to create a counter community of equity, compassion and wholeness for all.
As Resurrection Sunday comes around another year, let us be mindful that Easter or Resurrection Sunday symbolizes that the struggle against domination, marginalization, and privatization of the earth’s resources continues.
Resurrection Sunday is not the culmination but the revelation that the struggle continues and we have been given an invitation to follow Jesus on the way that he first walked for us.
The religion of Jesus, oftentimes called Christianity, is a religion of resistance against subjugation and oppressive policies that prohibit people based on skin color, class status, gender, sexuality, or geography.
To sum up the quote above from Frederick Douglass, the struggle continues. By the way, Douglass was a genuine follower of Jesus Christ, not just a Christian.
Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday/Easter are a rallying cry to those who take the earthly life example of Jesus seriously to resist the oppressive Empire that we presently live in.
Finally, as that great theologian of the Funk, George Clinton used to say, “Think, it ain’t illegal yet.”
Be well, Be authentic and Stay Woke! Uhuru Sassa!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.