For Christians all over the world, this week is Holy Week, not just because of what God did in antiquity. It is holy because of what God is doing today.
By divine providence, there is a consecrated convergence of Holy Week, Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Black Maternal Health Week. This providential convergence is a prophetic call to the church and our collective conscience to sit with Jesus at the Cross and experience the ugly, brutal exploits of injustice.
We cannot experientially grasp the power of the Resurrection without first acknowledging the injustice of crucifixion.
Napoleon Harris
Too often, believers rush to the triumph of Easter Sunday without pausing to ponder at the gory, shadowed foot of the cross. We celebrate the empty tomb while emptying Jesus’ suffering of meaning.
This constructs a theology that craves crowns but loathes crosses, chases miracles but dodges the marginalized, glorifies power but turns a blinded black eye to pain and holds contempt for the contents of the kingdom of God.
“We cannot grasp the power of the Resurrection without first acknowledging the injustice of crucifixion.”
This is imperial theology. It is not of God and it is not the gospel of Jesus — the melanated, colonized, reforming Jew who was targeted, tortured, humiliated and lynched by a murderous empire because he dared to stand against injustice.
Holy Week, rightly observed, is a confrontation with the same limited, non-God-honoring, patriarchal, oppressive pathology that crucified Jesus and diminishes the voices of those who suffer today.
Holy Week begins with resilient resistance baptized in hope and ends with resurrection redeployment in service to God’s just desires for the world.
“Hosanna!” is the soundtrack to Palm Sunday. “Hosanna” is a cry of protest, not praise. It means, “Save us!”
Jesus entered Jerusalem to the sounds of people under occupation, poverty and systemic suffering. Their cry then is our cry now: Save us — from dishonesty, from a fluctuating economy, from gun violence, greed, hatred and despair. Save us from a world that denies our dignity.
Hosanna!
This week, we are invited to sit at the foot of the Cross resisting the urge to turn away from Christ’s suffering, letting it compel us to stand in solidarity with victims of sexual assault. Because they, like Jesus, were stripped of their clothes, dignity, safety and their voice by those who refused to honor the divine within them. Jesus was brutalized by idolatrous individuals who exalted their own power and desire over God’s will. Jesus’ suffering was spiritual, physical, emotional, communal and systemic.
“To truly have fellowship with Christ and share in his sufferings we must stand in solidarity with survivors too.”
Survivors of sexual assault know this path. As they walk it, Jesus walks with them. To truly have fellowship with Christ and share in his sufferings we must stand in solidarity with survivors too.
Likewise, we must also turn our holy attention to Black women. Black Maternal Health Week invites us to consider that Black mothers are three to four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Their pain is ignored, their voices dismissed, their bodies policed, and their health underfunded.
These are not just episodes of medical negligence or medical anomalies; they are acts of cultural and structural violence, a moral emergency, crucifixion by a different name. When Black women are denied fair, culturally responsive health care, it is an affront to the gospel. Jesus stands with Black women, and we must too.
I am convinced the convergences of this week are consecrated and not coincidental. This moment is calling us to action.
The marginalized voices crying “Hosanna, save us” are meant to be heard, felt and responded to. Holy Week is calling us to observe it differently. We must abandon imperial theology and stand at the bloody foot of the Cross.
There we will see Jesus not clothed in power, but stripped naked, suffering and abandoned. Etched into his sweaty, bloody brow are the faces of survivors, Black mothers, the poor and the forgotten.
Let’s stand with the oppressed because Jesus is there, calling us to stand with him, in defiant hope.
Let’s believe, as the early church believed, that resurrection is a movement, (not magic, or a momentary phenomenon) that requires participation, action. It requires that we organize to demand our local leaders fund justice and equity so our policy reflects the compassion of Christ.
Let’s insist that our local leaders allocate resources, create policies and prioritize the most vulnerable. Then and only then can we fully experience the miracle of Easter in our sanctuaries, our streets, our spirits, our systems.
Easter resurrection is God’s response to violence, feelings of abandonment and despair. It is God’s veto against injustice and heaven’s vote of affirmation for life and justice. God is able to raise us higher, but it starts with us standing at the Cross with those who are suffering.This is the holy work of Holy Week.
Napoleon Harris serves as pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, a member of Healing Communities, Greater Cleveland Congregations, United Pastors in Mission, the NAACP, Vessels Vote, and a board member of: Village of Healing and the Vote to Live Foundation.