When Christians gather for Holy Week services, we already know how the story ends. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday liturgies don’t ask us to forget the resurrection; we are Easter people 365 days a year. The disciples, however, did not know. Whatever hope they maintained in Jesus’ promises, his crucifixion left them traumatized, uncertain, and afraid.
Americans are living through a time when hope is elusive and fear is the norm. The news is a fire hose of the Trump administration’s bigotry, graft, and gleeful nihilism.
Immigration enforcement has hardened into lawless, indiscriminate violence against people with brown skin, cultural signifiers from other countries, or accents. The administration is contemptuous of the First Amendment rights of protesters, journalists, and houses of worship. We’ve seen both the end of much of the good the United States does around the world and the escalation of much of the bad. The federal government, always wobbly about any commitment to climate action, is now all in on preventing it. And much of that government is functioning as essentially a crime syndicate, enriching the president and his cronies while persecuting his enemies.
