The Indivisible Paschal Trinity

A Palestinian Christian reading of Easter

Christians celebrate Easter (Passover) i.e. Resurrection. Passover (Pesach) is a Hebrew word meaning to cross over from … to: from slavery to freedom; from oppression to justice; from obscurity to light; from night to day; from death to life; from the darkness of the tomb to the dawn of resurrection. This is what happened to the Jewish people who left the land of Egypt, the land of slavery, to the Promised Land, the land of freedom; and this is what happened to Christ who conquered death with life, from Good Friday to the dawn of the Glorious Resurrection.

This dual dimension, yet, harbours another, making it triple, or even better, a trinity: which formulates a single indivisible unity. This trinity could be summarized in three words: pain – death – resurrection. It means that Christ had to go through all types of psychological and corporeal pains, which he had experienced through agony, treason, imprisonment, judgment, flogging, slapping, spitting, wearing a crown of thorn, carrying a cross, stripping, thirst, vinegar to quench it, nailed hands and feet and finally a side pierced by a spear from which blood and water oozed. He loved us to the ultimate breath and the last drop of blood and even died for us on the cross. Fortunately, the last word in the equation was not for death but for life, not for internment but for resurrection. These odious pains experienced by the Lord would have been a meaningless and a momentous punishment for him were they to culminate in death only … They are the inevitable path to life, resurrection and light with which the indivisible trinity is completed to become a glorious trinity rather than a tragic one.

This trinity seems to be a part of the norms of both life and nature: If a wheat grain does not die in the soil it will not multiply, but as it rots in the soil’s humidity it rises again to produce a stem, leaves and a wheat corn that would contain thirty, sixty or one hundred grains as the poet Mahmoud Darwish proclaims: “A wheat corn that dies will render the valley replete with wheat corns.” Similarly, a pregnant woman has to go through pregnancy and labour pains to give life to its foetus, but no sooner she is happy again and forgets her pain because a human being has been born and his eyes has seen light. Let us draw our lesson from mother nature: It is inevitable to have autumn where tree leaves fall to be succeeded by winter where extreme cold weather sets in so as to attain spring’s beautiful greenery, with fruit abundance and appealing flowers. Dawn sets, as well, only after the darkness of night; the crescent and full moon appear in the middle of the sky only after an absence of several long days and nights; the stars shine brightly only when darkness is complete. Finally, if the sun sets that does not mean it does not exist but it is somewhere else and will soon rise to bring about a new bright dawn.

The above equation could be applied to our Palestinian lexicon. We shall find three similar words that would form an indivisible trinity: Struggle – martyrdom – liberty. It is as though our nation is destined to pay the price of struggle with all its accompaniments of pain, sorrow, forced immigration, dispersal, home demolition and destruction, imprisonment and arrest, tears and sighs, hunger and deprivation, perturbation and worries, hopes and pains which often lead to death and martyrdom if one wants to obtain his freedom, independence and inalienable rights. We certainly are on the same way of the cross as that of Christ and we are now on top of the Golgotha or, perhaps, on top of the cross and we are often killed and buried but we do not despair, yet, we continue to wager on hope and remain confident that this path which takes us to the grave is the only road that would lead us to resurrection. In as far as we are concerned this is part of the historical determinisms: the final word could not be for oppression, occupation, settlement, imprisonment and arrest but for freedom and life. If someday the nation wills life, fate will accede and night will recede and shackles will shatter.

However, the big question remains to be: until when do we remain on the cross? Or even in the depth of the earth? The answer is that we have two choices only and no more: we either have to carry our cross audaciously and bravely and embrace it with love and sacrifice and die with pride on its top or to reject it with fear and flee it cowardly and tug fiercely at it until it falls on top of us and crush us in defeat. I have provided you with a choice, so you have either to choose between death in my grave and resurrection, or live in disgrace and humiliation. The morrow is close at hand.

This is the good news of Resurrection for us.

Father Raed Awad Abusahlia

Chancellor

Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem