Cross-posting this Easter letter from one of Christians for a Free Palestine (CFP)’s leadership team. I choose to hold on to resurrection hope. Without hope, I would shrivel in despair and give up.
And yet, I know a family starving in Gaza, after a 7 week blockade of humanitarian aid, who lost half of their extended family in an Israeli bombing last week. How can this be a time to celebrate?
Can I confess something to you? I have a hard time celebrating Easter. The giddy excitement I used to feel as I put on pastel colored clothes and arrived early to church on that day has turned into melancholy. That melancholy is especially pronounced this year, as I hesitate to shout Alleluia about Jesus’ empty tomb when there are overflowing graves in Gaza. I am particularly nauseated by the Eastertide contradictions of Christian Zionism; surely one cannot proclaim that death has been defeated while routinely and zealously trafficking in Palestinian death.
In the hands of Empire, Easter is a war cry, a taunt lobbed at those deemed weak or unworthy. To the leaders of imperialist regimes, Easter provides a kind of retroactive theological justification for their Good Friday crimes. But Easter is not a holy get-out-of-jail free card.
I wonder – what if Christians didn’t think so casually about Good Friday – that the crucifixion is merely a plot device to set up the “gotcha!” twist of Easter morning? What if we embraced a Holy Saturday kind of faith – a spiritual practice that compels us to loiter where the dead lay, to weep, to repent, to reconsider everything we thought we were and everything we thought we knew. Holy Saturday faith doesn’t boastfully assume that resurrection is an inevitable guarantee. I believe that resurrection is the fruit harvested after the death march of Empire is finally put to an end.
That’s precisely why this Easter, I am doubling-down on my commitment to work for a free Palestine. Just as Jesus’ life and resistance undermined the imperialist forces of the Roman State, Christians must live and resist in a way that ends the modern-day death march of the Israeli regime. We must weep with the generations of Palestinians who have been crushed under the weight of apartheid. We must acknowledge and account for Christianity’s role in providing moral cover for this genocide. We must invest in building a powerful movement that challenges Christian Zionism. Covered by the shadow of the cross, we must boldly be incarnations of God who surrender ourselves to the foolishness of radical love and solidarity. Only then will resurrection be possible.
May this Eastertide season renew our hope that trouble don’t last always – because we won’t let it – and that Palestine will indeed be free.
Sincerely,
Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, with CFP National Leadership
PS: CFP is committing to raise $50,000 this spring to fuel our organizing efforts and prepare us to disrupt Christian Zionism this summer with the Interfaith Action for Palestine. I’m committing to raise from my personal networks towards this goal. Will you help us get there with a donation today?
Seeds Will Grow 
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