Father Dominic Emmanuel

I too was invited in the multi-faith prayer service at Jantar Mantar to support the cause of social activist Anna Hazare and the team. On the third day when I finished a reading from the Bible, the Sikh gentleman sharing the dais with me expressed in total bewilderment that such a teaching was almost impossible to live by.

The teaching in question which Jesus imparted was, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell”. The same is also said about the use of our hands and feet. Obviously, the extreme step suggested in the teaching is to make people realise about the seriousness of committing a sin. Corruption is nothing but a sin of excessive greed, of lying, cheating for one’s own selfish ends. I also told my Sikh friend that the fast-unto-death taken up by Mr Hazare and others also appears almost impossible to live by and that if we could all try and avoid committing any sin would that not make this human society more wonderful?
The commemoration of the last days of Jesus’ life leading up to His crucifixion and death on the Cross which the Christians all over the world observe during this Holy Week but which began on April 17, on Passion Sunday, too looks extremely difficult to believe, if not impossible.
Besides the fact that people are fed up of deep-rooted corruption in our society, the reason why Mr Hazare’s movement got such an overwhelming support was that he was putting his life on line for the sake of a cause which was less for his own benefit and more for the larger Indian society, to free it from the curse of corruption. People know the experience of what it is like to miss even one meal.
Christians believe that Jesus, one of the divine persons of the Triune God, died for a much bigger cause. He died to free the whole humanity from the curse of all the sins. Christians believe that by His own bloodshed on the Cross He wiped away our sins and brought us salvation making us eligible for eternal life. However, the big question that still remains unanswered is that if Jesus died to free us from sin, how come sin, including that of shameless corruption, still reigns in the world. Did the death of Jesus and His eventual resurrection from the dead make no difference to our lives?
The theological answer to this question is although Jesus died to free us from the bondage of sin, He did not take away the fundamental freedom of human beings to choose between good and evil. In fact, Jesus, himself, had the choice either to connive with the Romans and the religious leaders of the time and walk free from the shameful crucifixion or to live as a totally free person speaking up the truth, even at the cost of death. After all He had taught His disciples, “You will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free”. Through His life and His teachings as depicted in the Gospels, He taught us to live in a way that would make us partners with Him in the Kingdom of God that he came to establish, a Kingdom which would be identified with and be based on the values of justice, peace and love.
Among other profound things that the Holy Week helps us remember are two central lessons that can really help us live a life in proximity to God is to realise that if one wants to live and stand by truth one needs to be prepared to suffer pain and ignominy even to the point of death. Two, that pain and suffering is not really the end of life. The life of Jesus did not end at the Cross. Overcoming the shameful death that took place on Good Friday, He defeated death by rising from the dead on Easter Sunday. That was the ultimate victory.
In those days, death on the Cross was awarded to criminals and so Jesus’ death, in the eyes of the world was an utter failure but with His rising from the dead, He brought hope to the whole world. The crux of the whole Holy Week observance lies in this paschal mystery that there is resurrection after death.
No wonder then that millions of people are ready to suffer in the name of Jesus because they are sure in their belief that the risen Lord will embrace them all in His open arms with as much love as His outstretched arms on the Cross can hold. And God’s infinite love in Jesus is really the unconditional love for us all.

— Father Dominic Emmanuel, a founder-member of Parliament of Religions, is currently the director of communication of the Delhi Catholic Church. He was awarded the National Communal Harmony Award 2008 by the Government of India. He can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com