Within mainstream churches, this week is known as the Holy Week. Three days of the week, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, provide intense human yet divine experiences commonly known as The Paschal Mystery: The passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There are two people in the narratives of this Holy Week I would like to reflect on for their opaque roles in the arrest, torture, and crucifixion of Jesus.
Both have a unique position to define who Jesus is at a critical moment. Dramatically, as the Gospel narratives provide the account, both men, Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate, look the other way at the hour of need for Jesus.
Of the 12 men Jesus calls to his inner sanctum, Judas makes it to the list. He works alongside his fellow disciples. He knows Jesus at a closer range. He is a man who has been schooled in discipleship from the Master himself.
Judas knows one of the priorities of their work is to stand with the poor, the marginalised, the outcasts, and those denied justice by the regime of the day.
Judas is synonymous with a betrayer. A person who violates the seal of relational trust for personal gain. A betrayer acts consciously. He undermines trust, feigns ignorance, gains from that act of betrayal, and sometimes turns hostile to the person betrayed.
The Judases of our time are also exceptionally good at gaslighting. They are also great with sweet tongues, even when they mercilessly backstab. In the context of this Holy Week, Judas eats with the master he is about to betray. He pretends all is well.
Oh Judas! Conflicted inside, acting normal on the outside. A murderer inside, but a disciple outside.
When Jesus is arrested, tortured, and taken for judgment before Pontius, Judas’s conscience begins to haunt him. He has betrayed an innocent man, whom he knows is Christ. His conscience haunts him so much that he takes his own life.
An exceptionally judicious Roman Empire figurehead with political power, Pontius interrogates Jesus in public and finds no fault with him. He tries to persuade the charged crowd that Jesus is innocent, but instead they yell out for Barabbas, a criminal, to be released.
A man whose word could release Jesus is deeply troubled by his conscience about what he is about to do. As if to massage the conscience, he washes his hands in public to cleanse himself from the blood of an innocent man. What actually did he do? He saved his job. Yes, between an innocent man and his job, he gave in to public pressure to have a man tortured, crucified, and killed to save his job.
I have never come across someone called Judas Iscariot or Pontius Pilate. Yet the two men were great personalities. Judas, like some of us, eats with his master moments before he betrays him.
A celebrated musician once sang that "mbaya wako rafiki yako mnaye kula pamoja" (the one you eat with is your enemy). The Swahili saying kikulacho ki nguoni mwako (what kills you is on your clothes) drives the same point home.
There are many problems we face as a country. Unemployment, poor medical care, misappropriation of billions of shillings, exploitation of the poor, and denying children an environment to grow to their full potential, among others. Let us be honest with ourselves. What is the cause? Ask Judas. The resources are available in plenty. But Judas wants to buy helicopters, super armoured vehicles, shop abroad, and yes, “give to the poor.”
Pontius is our man with power, who knows the right thing to do, but the sweetness of power blinds him from giving justice to innocent people. When people are denied their right of expression, when gangs rise to point fingers at innocent people, when those who fear losing power stir the public against people who fight for peace and justice, then you know Pilate is in town.
These two personalities mirror the main reasons why our countries stagnate: Insatiable greed and clinging to power at the expense of human life.
Dr. Mokua is the Executive Director, Loyola Centre for Media and Communication
