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These words are being written for the Christian Easter festival. Mumbai's citizens
were stirred up by a two-hour dance extravaganza entitled, "Yes! The Spirit of triumph."
The show was dedicated to the people of Gujarat who had an awful earthquake experience.
Top professionals were involved in the performance. Colour. Movement. Joy. The tragedy
of pain. The ecstasy of life and spirit.
To prepare for this magnificent celebration, readers of the "Bombay Times" were
treated to inspirational stories about human beings who said "Yes!" by showing courage
in adversity. For example: Stephen Hawking, Helen Keller, Douglas Bader, Sudha Chandran,
Jayabala Ashar, Amitabh Bachchan and the like.
"There is not a single home that has not gone through trying times in life. That
makes the whole world one family. If we as a family have the will, and if we try,
we will triumph over any adversity" (Vidyottama Sharma)
One problem remains. Nobody who has faced death courageously returns to tell the
tale! Nobody except one. Jesus Christ. The whole point of Easter is that death is
placed realistically at the center of the tragedy and triumph of each human life.
Easter allows St. Paul to cry out in his message to the people of the ancient city
of Corinth, "Death is swallowed up in victory. Death where is your victory? Death
where is your sting?" (I Cor.15, 54-55)
In our Indian towns and cities, irrespective of religious affiliation, it is Christmas
that is better known and more widely celebrated. Easter tends to be considered a
more sectarian festival. A strange Christian idea. Well, that's a pity, because
death does not happen to be restricted to Christians. The great mysterious darkness
at the end of earthly life is something each human being must face. Christians believe
that the survival of an "immortal soul" freed from a discarded corpse is very different
from the "whole person" returning in bodily form to new and more vibrant life.
"Do not go gentle into that good night / Old age should burn and rave at close of
day / Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Who is not moved by these words
of Dylan Thomas?
The sparkling, faith-inspired, Christian response is better conveyed by John Donne,
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou
art not so... / And Death shall be no more : Death, thou shalt die!"
For Christians, the resurrection of Jesus is symbol and promise of our own triumph.
The beginning of the third millenium finds the perhaps billion or so inhabitants
of Planet Earth more closely linked through the media in ideas and ideologies, perspectives
and philosophies. Today we tend to absorb from each other more meaningful and openhearted
ways of discovering significance for our lives and deaths.
Karma, reincarnation, resurrection, meditation, spiritual growth and cosmic evolution
have entered into our living rooms and party conversations. It is not uncommon to
find in the Indian newspapers funeral notices announcing the entry of some beloved
relative or friend into "The heavenly abode". That sort of feeling, close to the
Easter hope, is not restricted today to Christians.
The central point of Easter is that the loved one passes through the doors of death
into a happier and more vibrant form of life - without losing her/his personal identity.
The very concept is beautiful and close to the human longing of many of us, whether
or not one chooses to accept it as belief. Who wouldn't be delighted to encounter
a child or mother or spouse in another life in familiar, recognizable human form?
Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Christian dares to hope precisely
for that kind of possibility. Inspite of dying a cruel, shameful and undeserved
death on the cross, Jesus reappeared fully alive in bodily form on numerous occasions
to several friends. And they were not expecting him either! Nevertheless he passed
through doors, walked, talked, ate, cooked breakfast and otherwise interacted normally
before disappearing once more from sight.
As a professional biologist who also happens to be a practicing Christian, I must
explain why the bodily resurrection of Jesus makes good sense to me. It somehow
"fits", if we try to understand how even now our "body" is related to the universe.
A spoonful of ocean water is known to carry millions of living things. Our Earth
is filled with this mysterious, indefinable reality called "life", and what we consider
"inanimate matter" is intimately bound up with living things. Dead atoms and molecules
pass constantly in and out of our living forms. The so-called human "body" - which
we walk, talk and dance with - is firmly meshed into the material universe.
It is my eternal, indestructible, spiritual energy, which takes in and puts out
what I eat and drink and breathe in order to say "Yes!" to life. Why should death
destroy this pattern? It makes sense for me to look calmly on all adversity, including
death, and be amused at the prospect of being recognized in another existence by
others in all the true beauty currently concealed under my current ugliness.
In the end, it means becoming joyously aware that the butterfly is only a transformed
caterpillar, and that the tough imprisonment of the cocoon is worth accepting because
of the freedom of the blue skies to follow. That would suggest why there are Easter
eggs.
As Beethoven said, "We finite creatives with an infinite spirit are born to suffer
and to rejoice. One might almost say that the chosen few receive their joy through
pain." Beethoven's best music was written when he was totally deaf!
To end on a deeply personal note, my own Christian Easter hope is more strongly
stamped on my heart whenever I look at - I mean really look at and take in and become
one with - the face of the famous Carnatic Musician M.S Subbulakshmi when lost in
the ecstasy of her song. Everything in her becomes radiant with the words, "Primordial
One! Blessed Redeemer! I know not by what austerities or acts of charity I am privileged
to serve, worship and sing your praise… Let your grace flow to me. The bliss I will
then experience would be beyond description" (Thygaraja).
Never say die. The joy of the resurrection fills the whole world. Death, where is
thy sting?
- Fr. Lancelot Pereira
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