One of my favorite readings about the meaning of Easter comes from the writings of the
Universalist minister, Clinton Lee Scott:
"Jesus is risen from the dead. The centuries have not been able to bury him.
Forsaken by his friends, sentenced to die with thieves, his mangled body buried in a
borrowed tomb, he has risen to command the hearts of millions, and to haunt our
hate-filled world with the restlessness of undying hopes. The years bring him increasingly
to life. The imperial forces that tried to destroy him have long ago destroyed themselves.
Those who passed judgment upon him are remembered only because of him. Military might and
political tyranny still stalk the earth; they too shall perish, while the majesty of the
carpenter-prophet bearing his cross to the hill will remain to rebuke the ways of
violence."
This Easter season we cannot help but be aware of the tragic conflict taking place in
Kosovo. There we have the awful sight of Serbian militia, most of whom are Orthodox
Christians, attacking and killing unarmed Muslim Albanians, looting, burning and leveling
their villages, and forcing survivors enmass to leave their homeland. NATO forces have
entered the conflict through bombing missions in hopes of stopping the so-called
"ethnic cleansing", but have yet to see any results from their efforts. The
brutalization goes on and we do not know when it will end. Still, the effort to stop it, I
believe, is noble in intent and worthy of our moral support, though some may question its
political wisdom.
It is no comfort to recall that it was a brutal Roman occupation of Palestine that led to
the trial and execution of Jesus of Nazareth two millennia ago. But as Clinton Lee Scott
reminds us we all remember Pilate and Herod and the Roman guards because of their presumed
association with the execution of a healing prophet of justice and love. They have all
come and gone hundreds of times over, but the message of that prophet who taught love,
practiced peace, and prayed for the kingdom of heaven to come on earth, has endured
throughout the ages in spite of the fact that many have sought to kill and maim in his
name. They will not prevail though many may yet suffer and die.
Understandable comparisons have been made to Nazi Germany and the attempt to exterminate
the Jews. Six million died in the death camps, but there were some who survived to tell
the story and their story needs to be heard because through them hope and love survived.
Hope and love will survive the conflict in Kosovo though we may wonder how with so much
violence, hatred and bitterness being expressed.
I saw the movie, "Life Is Beautiful", last week, at my favorite theater in
Hingham center. As many of you may know it was a story about an Italian Jew who did
everything he could to keep his love for his wife alive and to hide and protect his son
while they were in a concentration camp together. In the end his wife and son survive
while he loses his life.
I am reminded of the Vienesse psychiatrist, Victor Frankl's experience following his
liberation from the death camps. He and his first wife Lilly were transported to Auschwitz
together (after having only been married a few months) and there they were separated. Not
knowing whether his wife was dead or alive Frankl nonetheless kept her alive in his heart
throughout his ordeal. Afterwards he learns that she did not survive. Then he has an
uncanny encounter with a displaced Dutch laborer who kept playing with a small object in
his hands. "What do you have there?" Frankl asked him. He opened his palm and
revealed a tiny golden globe, the oceans painted in blue enamel, with a gold band for the
equator. On it was the following inscription: "The whole world turns on love."
It was a pendant--just like one he had given Lilly on her birthday which they had
celebrated together shortly before they were married. "Just like it? It could have
been the very one, for when he bought it he was told there existed only two of its kind in
Vienna. The laborer had procured it from an SS collection of Jewelry that came from the
extermination camps--Auschwitz being the primary source." Frankl immediately bought
the pendant from the man. "It was dented slightly," he said, "but the whole
world still turns on love." Though she did not survive, his love for her did, and
that love gave him the courage and hope to endure and carry on. I think Jesus of Nazareth
had a crazy dream that the whole world turns on God's love and justice. He died for that
dream, and though it has been dented many times over the millennia, we gather every year
at Easter to say that in our heart of hearts we still believe the whole world turns on
love.
The late Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich, tells the story of a witness in the
Nuremburg war-crime trials who testified that he "had lived for a time in a grave in
a Jewish grave-yard, in Wilna Poland. It was the only place he--and many others--could
live, when in hiding after they had escaped the gas chamber." He reported that
"in a grave nearby a young woman gave birth to a boy." An "eighty-year-old
gravedigger, wrapped in a linen shroud, assisted. When the new-born child uttered his
first cry, the old man prayed: 'Great God, hast Thou finally sent the Messiah to us? For
who else than the Messiah Himself can be born in a grave?'"
Tillich's story brings to mind that poignant scene in the finale of "Schlinder's
List" which was broadcast on television a couple of weeks ago. The scene is a
Catholic cemetery by the grave of Oscar Schlinder, the German financier and industrialist,
who used his power, influence and money to save 1200 Jewish men, women and children from
certain death in the extermination camps. The survivors, their children, and their
children's children, come to Schlinder's grave to pay their silent respect. As each one
walks by he or she leaves a small stone on top of the horizontal slab marking Schindler's
burial site. Soon hundreds of small stones of various sizes, shapes and colors cover
nearly every inch of the marker. The last person to come by is the wife of his latter
years who gently lays a flower on top of the stones. It was an especially moving scene
because these were not actors, but the real living survivors of Schlinder's legacy.
It was said of Schlinder's list that "the list is life" because those whose
names were on his list were given the chance of survival. Born in the grave. Who but the
Messiah could be born in the grave? Each one of those lives could be said to have been
born in the grave, the grave of Oscar Schlinder's life and death. He gave the gift of life
to 1200 souls and risked his own life in so doing. Maybe one of them or their children
will be a messiah or savior to another person or race or culture or even the world because
of the courageous actions of one man. Theodore Parker once said, "Let there be a
thousand, thousand christs and messiahs." We all have it within us to be a source of
love and healing and wholeness to others. The whole world still turns on love if we choose
to make it so, if we could but own the spirit of that ancient Nazarene and let his power
of sacrificial love transform our hearts and our world.
Sometime in the days or months ahead the conflict in Kosovo will come to an end. Let our
prayer be that out of the grave of death and violence a pathway to peace and
reconciliation may yet be found. May the eternal source of wisdom and love help us to make
it so. Amen.