I’ve long felt there was something innately wrong with praying to someone nailed to a cross. It is a vulgar image, and made more vulgar if I am to believe that the allegedly most powerful person in the world would sacrifice his only son, when the power was in his hand to change the hearts and minds of the persecutors, to whisk away his son, or to eradicate violence all together.

How has this image of “god’s” son nailed to a cross inscribed for us that violence is acceptable? For me it portrays the father as untrustworthy, a man willing to let his son suffer — for the salvation oh mankind? I don’t buy it. Not a pill I am prepared to swallow. As a parent, I find the representation of such as father reprehensible, and certainly no one with whom I have any faith. So where does that lead me?

I read the story with its patriarchal endorsement of violence, and I shift my gaze to the mother going to the grave site and the resurrection — after all it is women who must always weep, and use our tears to wash away man’s violence and transform it into something palatable and hopeful.

Given the global pandemic, Resurrection at this time, is being called for — rising from our slumber into greed, rising from our disregard for the environment, for one another, and for the future we ought to be creating. How do we resurrect our vision? How do we imagine and begin to fashion a new way of existence and development? How do we climb out of the quagmire of mediocrity into which we have stumbled and become community again?

I believe we can. I know we can. I am pronouncing that we will. Our very survival depends on our resurrection from violence and wastefulness.

Let’s begin this new journey and create a cross, not to worship, but to step forth with a vision that is humane and equitable.