In Case You Didn't Hear a Sermon like this During Holy Week
- gkeator99
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
“We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.”
I’ve been thinking about this statement over and over again for the past week. It is a correct statement. I wonder if it is a complete one.
Alleluia is our song, and I keep wondering all of the different ways we cry out “Alleluia”. I wonder if all of them are right and just.
I wonder if the U.S. Catholic Church really understands what Easter symbolizes. Yes, it is the culminating day of resurrection. Of our salvation. We know the full story, so we focus on the celebration.
Today, I want to ask us to turn our attention to the full story. The full story of an innocent man who was sold out to state violence. A man who died a brutal death with four groups of people as witnesses.
First, we have the group that wanted the crucifixion. The group that wanted insurrectionists released and an innocent man murdered because that fit their agenda. “So he released the man who had been imprisoned
for rebellion and murder, for whom they asked,
and he handed Jesus over to them to deal with as they wished.”
I weep because I see President Trump pardoning and releasing hundreds of people who put our democracy in danger while trafficking 238 Venezuelans and an unaccounted-for number of Salvadoran brothers who were trafficked to CECOT Terrorism Center in El Salvador. They had no trial, no due process, and many without having committed a single crime. I wonder why we celebrate the release of people that look like us and also celebrate the imprisonment and torture of people that defy our pre-conceived notions of belonging and safety.
I do not feel safe knowing that tattoos, that language, that documentation or lack thereof is enough for us to condemn someone. I do not feel safe knowing that a large group of my fellow citizens are celebrating the imprisonment and torture of these innocent men. The shouts of “Crucify them” outside of Church walls are overwhelming the exclamations of “Alleluia” at mass.
Then, we have the group that tolerated it. We do not hear about them in any of the readings, but I do not have to work hard to imagine that they were there. The ones that did not want to rock the boat. The ones that did not want a target on their own backs. The ones that did not want to risk losing their own power and privilege. The ones that decided that they were powerless in the face of State sanctioned violence and looked away because it was too painful.
I weep because this is where I see most of us sitting. U.S. Church leaders, why are you silent to today’s crucifixions? Why is Andry, a Catholic gay Venezuelan make-up artist crying for his mother while being beaten in CECOT not enough for you to say something? Why are we not seeing political and religious leaders be brave and use their political and social power to stand up for the innocent men trapped and tortured and killed by an unjust system?
And, we have the officials who sanctioned it. The ones who schemed and plotted and were scared of what differences this man called Jesus was preaching and bringing to the table. None of these officials wanted to be directly blamed, so they passed Jesus off. The high priests to Pilate, Pilate to Herod, Herod back to Pilate. As stated in the Palm Sunday Gospel, “Herod and Pilate became friends that very day,
even though they had been enemies formerly.”
I weep because I see the religious and political leaders of today becoming friends with each other over causing other people to suffer. I see so called people of God shaking each other’s hands and exchanging money and giving thumbs up to and over the brutal suffering of innocent men in CECOT. I wonder if these men and women would have been friends with Herod, with Pilate, and with high priests who all wanted Jesus dead.
Finally, we have the group that stayed and accompanied the crucified Christ. We have Veronica and Simon of Cyrene and Joseph of Arimathea. We have Mary and John. Mary Magdalene and the other women at the foot of the cross. The ones that refused to look away and wept. We have the ones that loved Jesus until the end. That love propelled them to defy the state. To look up. To be moved by suffering and do whatever they could.
I weep because this is where we need to be. Mary Magdalene’s words to Simon Peter and John at the finding of the empty tomb should ring in our ears: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”
They have taken our brothers and we do not know where they put them. They have trafficked them to CECOT and refuse to tell us more. What are we going to do about it?
I call us to listen to a plea from St. Paul to the Corinthians:
For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.Therefore, let us celebrate the feast,not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
U.S. Church: U.S. Bishops and priests and religious and laity, where are we going to publicly stand? On the side of malice and wickedness, who fear those who are different from us? On the side of malice and wickedness, who shout “Crucify Them!” instead of “Alleluia?” On the side of malice and wickedness, who are silent as the state carries out modern day trafficking and torturing and murder?
Or will we stand with the ones who loved Jesus until the end? Because if we truly believe in Imago Dei, then we must believe that Jesus is in Kilmar, in Andry, and in every single one our brothers that were sent to CECOT. And we must do something about it.
U.S. Church and Christian Political Leaders, will you continue to Crucify with active malice and silence and complicity? Or will you stand up and let your Alleluia guide you as True Easter People into saving and protecting innocent lives. We each have a choice. We need to choose. I beg you and each one of us as people of faith to choose sincerity and truth. Choose an Easter Alleluia.
Amen.
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