How do you celebrate Easter in a war zone? What Easter hymns do you sing in a bomb shelter? What prayers do you offer over a mass grave? What good is it if Jesus rose from the dead but your family won’t?
Today is Easter for Catholic and Protestant Ukrainians, about 10 percent of the population. Next Sunday is Easter for Orthodox Ukrainians, about 70 percent of the population. Catholics follow the Gregorian calendar. The Orthodox follow the Julian.
Once they were one church, but the Great Schism in 1054 tore Rome and Constantinople apart. It’s been a cold war between them ever since. Each claims to be the true successor of Jesus and the apostles. The Catholics have their pope. The Orthodox have their patriarchs.
The patriarch of Moscow has blessed the Russian military. The patriarch of Kyiv has blessed the Ukrainian military. Pope Francis has called for a truce.
Who cares? What does it matter?
Putin is an Orthodox Christian, and he’s bombing the hell out of Christian Ukraine. He won’t pause on Easter. He’s a madman.
With all due respect to Jesus, this is no time “to turn the other cheek.” Yes, love is better than hate, but love alone is not enough. Wisdom is necessary. You can’t allow an enemy (or anyone) to walk all over you or those you love. That’s not love.
Volodymyr Zelensky knows this. He’s Jewish. This past Friday he celebrated Passover. Easter celebrates Jesus. Passover celebrates Moses.
Moses repeatedly negotiated with Pharaoh to let his people go. Pharaoh balked time and time again and kept brutalizing the enslaved Hebrews. Moses could see that talks were going nowhere. He ran out of cheeks to turn. So he orchestrated the killing of all Egyptian male firstborns.
And then Pharaoh relented.
Jesus had one rule. Moses had another: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Simple rules are useful: Stop, look, and listen. But there’s another simple rule: He who hesitates is lost. It’s foolish to cling to one without taking the other into account.
I believe it’s good to turn the other cheek, in certain circumstances, and to love your enemies. But if a madman violently attacks my children, pacifism will not be my response. Violence will.
When you’re trapped in a Warsaw ghetto, you don’t turn the other cheek. You arm yourself to the teeth. That too is love.
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See Paula’s photo on the home page. Posted April 10
Amen, amen, amen. You hit the exact note I was feeling this a.m. Thank you for your continuing to share a message. I’ve been MIA with reading it, with one thing or another, letting my life get out of balance. But, no harm done in the mean time, and plenty of good. Shalom
“That too is love.” Yes; amen. When one offers one’s body in sacred communion with Creator in order to protect and defend loved ones, one’s sovereign country, and even the right to exist against Evil incarnate, what other word is there? Love was and is the “reason for the season.” Transformation to higher, selfless love is — is — resurrection. Glory to Ukraine, Glory be to God. Easter prayers for higher consciousness to all. Peace.
Ah. The ongoing discussion. Great for theologians etc about “just war.” But true- is turning the other cheek really a passivity response?
Very powerful essay….certainly thought provoking.
Bluebells
Thank you. The holy Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament put a very high priority on justice. Justice is the work of the Almighty…and of the tribe or society. Justice is the offspring of love. Justice is of love.
We stand with you. For everything, there is a time.
Perhaps what is needed is not only “Easter prayers for higher consciousness for all.” Maybe what we really need is training in higher consciousness, meditation and contemplation for all. Such activities are not escapes but encounters with reality. War, after all, is a mental construct. It begins and ends in the mind. No matter how heroic or “noble,” “war is always a defeat for humanity,” as Pope John Paul ll observed.
It is such a deep, despairing, seemingly hopeless cycle of wars, carnage & inhumanity… our minds & souls are disturbed – (& if we are “lucky” not our bodies – but certainly theirs).This is when we question; this is when faith is tested – we want to understand, to make sense out of the senseless; to make reason out of insanity; make order out of chaos. We have never been without guidance…there have been teachers & guides all along the way since we gathered in families, tribes, clans, cities, states, nations… & now as one interconnected world – Ukraine is us all. We take a stand for our lives; our families, our loved ones; some “things” are worth living for – and dying for. Including peace, love & justice. Thank you & Blessed Be you & my beloved community.
What prayers do you offer over a mass grave? You don’t. They are already dead. What good is it if Jesus rose from the dead but your family won’t? It’s plenty good. Jesus rising from the dead is the reason that we have hope in this life and the next. Sure, war is terrible. Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars. We live in a fallen world, but He alone is our hope. Not Buddha, not hinduism, not social justice, not meditation or yoga, but Jesus alone. BTW, Moses did not orchestrate the death of firstborn Egyptians. It was the last of God’s plagues on them. We all deserve God’s wrath, but he is longsuffering and shows us His mercy.
Amen, Brother. Turn the cheek one time react the next. Are we a good judge of when it is proper not to turn the other cheek, fist fight, car accident someone hurt. someone killed, self defense, war? I think I might react differently than my fellow Christians. Thankfully there is no set rule. Peace, George
Certainly thought provoking to read this the day after Easter. The celebration is over and its back to our lives filled with uncertainty and concerns for ourselves and others. Have to just keep praying.