Easter reflections by Pastor Silvio Schneider[1]
Geneva, 01.04.2015.
A few weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, the members of the planning committee for the 12th LWF Assembly visited three cemeteries in Windhoek. We wanted to learn about the history of Namibia’s liberation. The first cemetery was very well kept. It was intended for the white residents who, under the apartheid regime, lived in an exclusive district that is still ironically called “Beverly Hills.”
The local population was violently forced to settle in a separate district on the outskirts of the city. There they had to have a cemetery of their own. It does not look as fine; at least it is maintained by the local municipality. The people who lived near this cemetery were the daughters and sons of mixed families, or of relationships between representatives of the colonizing power and local women.
“Where no one wants to live”
Going farther out of the city, you finally reach the cemetery of the poor Africans. This is the Katutura district, which means “the place where no one wants to live.” At the entrance to the cemetery there is a mass grave of 12 Namibians who were shot on 10 December 1959 because they refused to move yet farther outside the city. They were victims of the violent apartheid regime. Today their grave is a memorial and they are honored as heroes. They gave their lives bearing witness to human dignity, making their contribution to Namibia’s independence 25 years ago.
The attempt to divide people into categories and to separate them even after death – in those days by skin color and culture, today by social status – expresses the conviction that death, and all that is bound up with death, has the final and lasting word. Separation reflects the belief that a country and its people can be ruled by violence and terror.
But as guests we also heard how individual Christians, as well as ecumenical partners and supporters from all over the world, helped to liberate and rebuild the country. Faith in Jesus Christ awakened hope and strength. Faith in the risen Christ overcame death and affirmed God’s will that all people should live in peace and justice. The Easter message is proclaimed in that same first confession: Jesus Christ lives (1 Cor. 15:3–5). The Lord is risen.
Another reality
The Easter message has brought another reality into the world. God’s reality gives us a wondrous confidence in life and a hope that is powerful and compelling. It gives the believer the courage never to give up, but to trust in life. In life’s trials and in situations where suffering and the threat of death point to death as the ultimate limit, the open confession that life triumphs over death rings out: He is risen! Christ is alive!
The resurrection of Jesus allows us to come to terms much more peacefully and trustingly with our own limitations, knowing that we are not on this earth forever. And when we depart, we can be carried like Lazarus (Lk. 16:22), “so that you will not strike your foot against a stone!” (Ps. 91:12), and no one will lose their way.
As the risen Christ tells us, this journey leads us to the Father, in whose presence all paths meet. The Creator awaits the return of His own. He who carried us into this world will carry us home again. Heaven is not a place, but a Person. We gather at the source of life, and that source is God.
The beginning of eternity
“He is risen!” Life’s victory over death is truly good news! News that can sustain us, encourage us, and give us hope. With it comes also the dawn of the Kingdom in this world, the beginning of eternity in this time. Ever since the time when Jesus preached and taught, worked miracles, and revealed God’s love to people through His way of life, action that fosters life and stands against death has been among us.
Jesus lives! He is risen! Yet deadly dangers are still all around us. Our hearts are heavy with the suffering that people experience both near and far. And yet that almost inexplicable hope and trust in life asserts itself again and again, telling us that all will be well with us and with our world, that God wishes us well. We can have the courage to be, however desperate our situation may seem. This is the truth that has endured since Easter morning. This we can believe. Full of fear and trembling, like the women at Jesus’s tomb, and yet with great joy.
[1] Rev. Silvio Schneider is the interim director of the LWF Department for Mission and Development.