This is how I know that Jesus is still alive

along with Malcolm, Martin, Oscar, Ita, Maura, Dorothy, Jean, Ayat, and other heroes, sheroes, martyrs, and witnesses.

Yesterday, while walking around Harlem with an activist friend, he randomly commented, “Well, that’s because you believe that Jesus is still alive, and I don’t.”

I was stunned. I am the least-orthodox Christian, let alone pastor, that I know. But his comment made me realize, with greater clarity than ever, that resurrection is the bedrock of my faith and work for justice.

Unfortunately, Malcolm X’s brutal assassination 60 years ago, on February 21, 1965, proved the truth of his words: “If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary.”

But my friend and I had just returned from a visit to the Schomburg Center, on the corner of W. 135th St. and Malcolm X Boulevard. Sure, some people call it Lenox Avenue, after the book collector and library donor, and others call it, simply, Sixth Avenue. Running right through 37 blocks of Harlem, his name is emblazoned at every intersection along Malcolm X from W. 110th St. to 147th, not to mention the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz and Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market on W. 116th, the sweatshirts sold by vendors all along W. 125th St, the Hotel Theresa (where he met Fidel Castro), the Shabazz Center at the Audubon Ballroom, the murals too numerous to name, the spirit of Black pride and resistance that permeates the Harlem air, and the hundreds of events taking place from coast to coast this year in honor of his 100th birthday.

There are so many other prophets whose legacies also attest that love and courage transcend death. On April 3, 1968, Dr. King, predicted, correctly, “I may not get there with you [to the Promised Land]…” on the night before he was assassinated. But he lives on in the continuing struggle for jobs, peace, and freedom.

Twelve years later, on March 24, 1980, Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero was similarly gunned down while celebrating mass, the day after preaching this:

I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants. No one has to obey an immoral law. I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression. (See https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/romero-assassinated/)

But Archbishop Romero was far from the only casualty of the US-trained and funded death squads in El Salvador. Later that year, on December 2nd, 1980, four Catholic women — Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan — were brutally murdered in a war that cost 70,000 Salvadorans their lives. (See https://www.maryknollsisters.org/40thanniversary/ .)

And in today’s war in Gaza, where over 50,000 people have been killed, Ayat Khadoura is just one of more than 217 journalists who have been killed for reporting the truth regarding the genocide there. Hear her poignant last message, which she posted on November 6, 2023, shortly before she was killed:

"We had many big dreams. But unfortunately today our dreams are that if we were martyred, we would be martyred as one body, that people would recognize us, and not be dismembered and put in a bag.” (See https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/12/31/know-their-names-the-palestinian-journalists-killed-by-israel-in-gaza .)

Ayat Khadoura's Last Message

And of course, long ago, another Palestinian, named Jesus, invaded the Temple with his followers, drove out the sellers, and occupied it as a freedom zone until the Empire and its Temple minions shut it down. They had him arrested, tortured, and executed, but we are still proclaiming his victory.

Jesus and the multitudes cleansing the Temple

In English, the gospels say that Jesus appeared to his disciples, which sounds very concrete and objective. But in Greek, the word is opthe, as in “optics.” It has a much more subjective feel — he was seen. What’s most important is not whether he physically, literally, or actually came back from the dead. It’s that his terrified disciples went from running scared and denying that they even knew him, to seeing him. What really happened to him, physically is much less important than what happened to them, spiritually. And what continues to happen — to us — whenever we choose love over fear.

These prophetic s/heroes paid dearly for their struggle for justice and freedom. But their courage and sacrifice call us to dream, dare, and live lives that transcend the capitalist rat-race of dominance, comfort, convenience, and consumption which normally holds us so captive.

Few of us are destined to enjoy (?!) prominence reached by these iconic figures. But now, more than ever, in the face of rising fascism, waning civil and human rights, and the desperate gasps of a crumbling empire, it’s up to each of us to choose love and courage over fear, at every opportunity.

Whether it’s attending a protest, wearing a keffiyeh, putting your body between ICE agents and the people they are trying to kidnap, or chaining yourself to a gate — as the Jewish pro-Palestinian friends of Mahmoud Khalil did recently did, it is past time for us to stand up and speak out. Few of us have Costco’s or Harvard’s resources, but our actions large and small, like theirs, ripple wherever live, work, or study.

The underlying truth is this: when we succumb to fear, when we remain silent in the face of evil, the fascists win. And whenever we stand up, we align ourselves with the moral arc of the universe that will one day prevail. It is that moral force, that life force, that God-force — that has kept Jesus alive, along with Malcolm, Martin, Archbishop Romero, Ita, Maura, Dorothy, Jean, Ayat, and so many others.

Thankfully, Mahmoud Khalil is still alive, in the flesh. But his horrific and illegal kidnapping has amplified his voice and call to action, for all to hear:

In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.

This is the sacred and eternal truth: They can jail us, they can kill us, but all who struggle for justice will live forever in the hearts and minds of everyone yearning to be free.