Our Easter

They asked me to take a stone in my hand and keep it ready. Just then I heard him say, “Let the one without sin throw the first stone.” I let go of the stone and ran as fast as I could. My friends were there too. We were out of breath when we stopped. What were we thinking, is this who we were? 

Months later we thought we were smarter and we wanted to see this Jesus who was healing and bringing the dead back to life. We joined those who were welcoming him to Jerusalem. I spread my outer cloth which my mother had stitched for me. Everyone was doing the same and I repeated with them, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” It was such a great atmosphere.

I walked again with my friends and saw how Jesus was caught and accused of blasphemy. We stood together and repeated “Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas.” It was like being with the crowd, being cool, being accepted. The collective sound could be heard far. There was a commotion and I saw Jesus being pushed and given a cross to carry. They tore his clothes and spat on him. Why were they doing this? I only repeated Barabbas’ name. I didn’t want them to hurt Jesus. We ran again. We cried and we sat on the ground wondering what we had done. Jesus had helped so many people. Why were they hurting him?

We learnt later that they nailed him to the cross along with two thieves. What did he do? Everything was so gloomy. The sun went down, the moon looked dark and there was an atmosphere of weeping and sadness. Then on Sunday we heard he was alive. He had risen they said. We ran as fast as we could. Earlier we were running away from him but this time we were running to him. We could barely breathe but we reached the place he was buried. We could just collapse on the ground but we wanted to see him. Maybe someone was already there. The stone of the tomb had been rolled away. We took a deep breath and went inside. There was no one. We stared into the empty tomb. The tomb which had Jesus, Jesus our Lord. 

Wishing everyone hope in the risen Lord. Blessed Easter.