“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honour, courage and virtue mean everything ; that power and money … money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this … that love … true love never dies. Remember that boy … remember that. Doesn’t matter if it is true or not, a man should believe in those things , because those are the things worth believing in … got that ?” — Hub, Secondhand Lions
LOGAN McMENAMIE
Early in the morning on the first day of the week, a woman goes to a garden to tend to a friend who has been murdered by the military. He has walked the way of non-violence and had absorbed the violence of the state. In doing so, he has lost his life in the cruelest of ways. The woman, whose name was Mary, was on her way to tend to the wounds of her dead friend and to anoint him.
She and this man’s other friends had seen him die and had thought this was the end of the journey they had been on with him. They had seen a better world through their time with him. He had given hope to the least, and they had seen the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed rising to follow him on this journey. However, during the past week they were shocked by the cruelty of the ruling classes and the occupational forces, for their friend had been cruelly executed. Shocked, disappointed and fearful, they had scattered and hid.
In an action of solidarity and dedication of a friend, Mary had gone to the garden where her friend had been buried days before. The experience for Mary was confusing and alarming. She had gone to care for the dead and discovered someone very alive.
In Mary’s case when hope seemed to have been destroyed by the violence of men she was invited anew to enter into life. When it looked as if violence had the last word, love came and greeted her in the garden.
Her friend was alive and present with her now and hope was reborn in her.
For generations since, the hope reborn in that garden lives on in women, men, children and youth. When all seems to be lost and death and violence seem to have the last word, hope comes to us in God’s word of resurrection.
In a garden, just at dawn,
Near the grave of human violence,
The most precious Word of Life
Cleared his throat and ended silence,
For the good of us all.*
What seemed to Mary as unreal affects us in the same way. Surely this cannot be true. How can someone who has died be alive in the garden on the first day of the week?
Everybody has faith in something. Everybody puts their trust, their hope and gives their love to something. What do you believe to be true? What gives you hope?
Is it that someone who was dead lives on in the hearts and minds of many giving hope when hope has gone? Is it that someone who was dead could be love’s last word and invite others to live a life of love, peace and non-violence?
A journey that joins the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the oppressed and the least into one family can change this world.
For Christians throughout the world, this is something worth believing in.
*In a byre near Bethlehem ©1987 WGRG, Iona Community, Govan, Glasgow G51 3UU, Scotland
The Right Reverend Logan McMenamie is the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of British Columbia.
