Image from Dictionary.com with thanks.

Are we going to be silent during our Good Friday services across Canada?  Act like this isn’t something we fund as a country?

When we talk about how Jesus was betrayed in Jerusalem—are we going to be polite?         Is that what Jesus asked us to do? Or has he asked us to speak up for the oppressed—especially on the day he was oppressed, suffered, and died because we betrayed him?

How are Christians around the world going to explain our silence?

Canada has a chance not to follow the path of the United States. We have the chance to stop these explosives and weapons from being sent to Israel—ones that drop on hundreds of thousands of innocents who are suffering and dying.

Did we learn nothing from the 1930s in Germany? Will we stay silent? What is Good Friday going to look like in every church? How will we reflect on what Jesus would do if he were here today?

As a Christian Palestinian, descended from 25 generations of Christian Palestinian priests in Jerusalem, this whole week is deeply, deeply full of grief.

For someone whose partner for ten years was Jewish and Israeli—and who refused to serve in the army because they knew that army was an occupying force—I know what it is to love my Jewish Israeli friends. We marched together this past Saturday in Ottawa, where we all said:  Never again. For ANYONE.

And yet—here we are again. German Christians were polite too, as their neighbors were dragged away. They turned their faces.
We cannot be silent. Or helpless. Or quiet. Or polite. Jesus would flip the tables.

Jesus was betrayed and crucified.
Christian Palestinians have felt a deep and ongoing betrayal for over 100 years—from British colonization to the promise of “a land without a people for a people without a land.”

Empire will have you believe you are helpless. Empire will sow fear and division. Just as it did during Jesus’ time—when he was betrayed and denied.

And yet—despite the grief—I still find hope in the resurrection. I pray that the resurrection of humanity is the second coming of Christ. That our collective resilience, resistance, and love become the reflection of what Jesus wanted that second coming to be.

I refuse to accept what my MP’s office told me—that the end times are here, and so Palestinians must suffer.

What about Palestinian Christians? What about humanity? What about the words Jesus spoke?

Jesus suffered deeply on that cross. And the crowd yelled:

Crucify him…
Deport him...
Imprison him...
Bomb him...

It’s all the same.

Yet from the ashes, hope rises. We are each called to search our souls and speak—not sleep. Not turn our heads. Not deny. But to come together as one. To speak. To love.          And to take action on that love by demanding an arms embargo—on the very weapons that blow people up.

Just like they blew up my father’s home in 1948, when he was 14.

This can happen anywhere, to anyone.
International law is crumbling in our silence and fear.

Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. And he asked us to stay awake. To stand up for justice.

Now is the time:
Easter is the resurrection.

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Ed. Note:   Samia Odeh is a Palestinian Christian, music director at Wall St. United Church, and lives in Brockville, Ontario.   Thank you, Samia, for this reflection calling us all to faithful action.