Easter Freedom

Holy Saturday is an appropriate time to be in Baghdad. In the Gospels it is a time of gloom. Jesus has been seized by a religious militia, brutally tortured and then executed. His lifeless and mutilated body is lying in a stone tomb. His family and disciples have run out of hope and were probably afraid also for their own lives.

That situation has a immediate resonance here in Iraq. Today dozens of families will be searching through the gruesome photographs in Baghdad morgue, in search of answers they do not want to find, or discretely burying a loved one with a single executioners bullet hole in his head. The situation here is very dark indeed, as one Iraqi told me today about a vision of "a huge devil hovering over the whole country." But... we know that Holy Saturday is not the end of the story... tomorrow comes resurrection. Iraq may have to wait a little longer than that for a new government, let along a new life for its people, but as I worshiped today with the Iraqi congregation of St.Georges Baghdad, shared communion and heard their stories of suffering, I was strengthened by their faith that though the situation remains grim Jesus has indeed conquered the power of death.

As my CPT friend Jim Loney, who was freed from his kidnappers in Baghdad last month, eloquently writes today in the Toronto Star: "There are no easy answers. We must all find our way through a broken world, struggling with the paradox of call and failure. My captivity and rescue have helped me to catch a glimpse of how powerful the force of resurrection is. Christ, that tomb-busting suffering servant Son of God, seeks us wherever we are, reaches for us in whatever darkness we inhabit. May we reach for each other with that same persistence. The tomb is not the final word."