Were you there?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

This question sits heavy on our chests over the days of Holy Week. Today is Holy Saturday, and today the tomb is full. Jesus has died a miserable and tortured death.

Every day in El Salvador we asked the question "What was hard for you today?" There were a lot of answers to this question: watching our cook Mercedes cry as she explained that she hadn't seen her daughter for three years because she had crossed illegally into the United States to try to better the family's situation back home; listening to young people who were afraid to play in church soccer tournament lest they be caught up in gang violence; seeing depictions of bodies tortured and murdered during the war; the sights of the ongoing poverty throughout El Salvador.

David Moseley, a theologian who teaches at the Bishop's School, has been giving a course on Jurgen Moltmann's book "The Crucified God" during lent. Last night he preached for the Good Friday service at St. Paul's Cathedral. His theme was theodicy the question: "where is God when people suffer?" Often we think about Jesus of Nazareth's death on the cross as the "sacrifice to cover our sins" as if what was needed was a perfect man to die. Moltmann reminds us that in Jesus, God Himself suffers on the cross. God does not exact revenge on an innocent human, but comes to earth and reveals his love by suffering WITH us. It is God who is crucified, God who cries out in agony and feeling abandoned, God who dies. God enters into the absolute messiness of humanity and experiences excruciating loss out of a desire for relationship.

I was struck by one of the relics on display at the Centro de Mgr. Romero. It was here where in 1989 six Jesuit priests were martyred because they dared to write that God was on the side of the poor. On the night that the Salvadoran ejercito entered the theology center and executed the priests, one of them was reading "The Crucified God." The book soaked up so much blood from the priest that it appears waterlogged. Now it is displayed in a glass case like the relics of more ancient saints, reminding us of God's work through people who choose to follow.

The German Lutheran Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who died in a Nazi Concentration camp wrote that grace is costly. 70 years ago Bonhoeffer wrote against a Spirituality that provided what he saw as "cheap grace," salvation without struggle, supposed appeasement of the need to feel redeemed. This grace is not the salvation of Jesus, who calls on us to follow him in the way of the cross. Discipleship leads to suffering because the world still perpetuates the anti-Christian systems of oppression which diminish the humanity of the ones God created and loves. Those who follow Jesus are called to throw themselves into the gear-work of the world's machine of oppression.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? The disciples must have asked this question of God. Seeing him beaten, thrashed, bloodied, hanging by nails through his flesh. Jesus himself asks, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Where is God when those we love suffer? Our faith in the incarnation causes us to answer that it is God himself who asks that question, God himself who suffers with us unto death, God who today lays in the tomb.

God then is with the suffering of the world. The Crucified God died with the Jesuits in the UCA, He cries with the hungry children out in the campo, and is there when a teenager is murdered in the name of gang war.

Were you there? Will you be?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble...

el salv blog

Being back in California and the United States has given me both a sense
of guilt and enlightenment. It is hard to come back and realize that I
have more comfort in my life, especially financially, than many people in
El Salvador will ever have. I cannot help but initially feel guilty about
this. After seeing the difficulties of people's lives in El Salvador and
how hard many people must work to provide for their families, I realize I
have often taken for granted the great life that I have. Also, it is
difficult to know that the opportunities and amenities that I have are not
as accessible or even existent in El Salvador. I believe that everyone
should be able to have equal opportunities and rights. However, this
obviously is not a reality after learning about the real conditions in El
Salvador. I find the people of El Salvador's reality to conflict with my
values in human rights as many are discriminated against and treated
unfairly. I know this feeling of guilt though is not want the people of El
Salvador would want me to walk away with and so this guilt transforms into
enlightenment.
With the realization of the privileges of my own life comes also the
realization of inequities present in the world that need to be addressed.
This recognition, awareness, and pursuit for change is what I think the
people of El Salvador would want me to walk away with. They want me to
take in all that I have seen and share it with others so that we no longer
can just turn our backs on those who suffer. After coming back from El
Salvador, I have learned to appreciate my life more, especially the
"little things" that I had before taken for granted. The availability of
education, which I have mostly taken for granted, is not something that is
offered all over the world for example, so I should take advantage and be
thankful for it. Sharing my story of El Salvador and what is going on
there is also equally important. After telling my family of the conditions
of the gang situations they were very surprised, and their eyes were
opened as the story and hardships of Salvadorians were spread. This
increased awareness will hopefully spread, and the world will begin to
address the needs and situations of those who suffer from discrimination,
persecution, poverty, and lack of opportunity.
-Elisse Larouche