Angie Olivia Wuysang
Easter is the foundational event of the Christian faith and the centerpiece of its global calendar. It is celebrated by more than two billion people in every corner of the world. Historically, the dating of Easter has been a point of debate since the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD (Konsili Nicaea), which sought to separate the Christian celebration from the Jewish Passover. This historical rift deepened in 1582 when the Western church adopted the Gregorian calendar, while Eastern Orthodox churches remained committed to the Julian calendar. Consequently, while Western and Eastern Orthodox churches often celebrate on different Sundays because they use different calendars, the message remains the same.
This season begins with forty days of prayer and fasting that lead into the three holy days. Maundy Thursday (Kamis Putih) remembers the final meal and the betrayal, while Good Friday (Jumat Agung) marks the state-ordered execution of Jesus. The journey ends on Easter Sunday, which celebrates the empty tomb as a victory over death. This period leads to a three-day journey following the story from a state-ordered execution to an empty tomb. The celebration centers on the historical claim that Jesus of Nazareth, after being executed by the Roman state, physically rose from the dead. This event represents a recorded case of a subject overcoming a state-mandated death sentence and challenges the finality of stately legal authority.
In Indonesia, this season is simply known as Paskah. The term Paskah carries a long historical lineage rooted in the Portuguese and Dutch colonial periods that introduced Christianity to the archipelago. These colonial origins established a unified terminology that modern national religious bodies now use to coordinate their official activities. While the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) and the Indonesian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (KWI) issue annual pastoral letters, the term itself is a linguistic bridge to the global Pascha tradition. Their joint message typically calls on the faithful to manifest the resurrection through active participation in nation-building and the defense of human dignity. It emphasizes that religious life is inseparable from a commitment to justice and the integrity of the environment. Today for many Christians, these traditions reflect a difficult time for Indonesian democracy because the laws that limit government power are getting weaker.
Easter and the Necropolitics
The heart of the Easter story contains a reflective question found in the Gospel of Mark 16:3: “They were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” (In Indonesian: “Mereka berkata seorang kepada yang lain: ‘Siapa yang akan menggulingkan batu itu bagi kita dari pintu kubur?“) This question highlights a physical and political barrier. It asks who has the power to move an obstacle that seems permanent. Today, Indonesia faces a similar situation as national rules weaken. There is a constant effort to make the public forget past mistakes. Whether through the manipulation of laws to build political dynasties or the recent violent attacks and criminalization of human rights activists, moral values are being traded for the survival of those in power. These acts of intimidation show that the stone is no longer just a legal barrier but a systematic effort to silence dissent.
To understand why this matters so deeply, we must look at the concept of necropolitics. Necropolitics is where power is used to decide which lives are protected and which voices can be crushed without consequence. This term was first used by the African philosopher Achille Mbembe in 2003. The concept explains how governments use their power to determine who is allowed to live and who is ignored within a social system. In Indonesia, this occurs when the state allows public institutions to weaken, which effectively “kills” the tools needed to enforce justice. This failure is evident when the state remains passive while religious minorities are denied the freedom to express their faith or build places of worship.
Furthermore, necropolitics occurs when the state seizes indigenous lands to benefit the political and economic elite. By treating these groups as obstacles to development, the government decides that their rights and lives are less important than maintaining power. This situation causes a political “Good Friday” to remain active through the culture of kerukunan, or forced harmony. In the name of harmony, leaders make private deals and call it “peace.” However, this peace is a form of necropolitics because it kills the truth to protect elite groups. This barrier is often guarded by religious groups that prefer a comfortable position in power over the difficult task of speaking the truth. By choosing harmony over justice, these groups help the state sacrifice the rights of victims.
The Cross as a Political Model
Jesus of Nazareth acted as a dissident who confronted the religious authorities and the ruling elite for their systemic hypocrisy. Jesus provides a normative model for Christian and political ethics through a radical and nonviolent way of engaging power. Theologian John Howard Yoder argued in The Politics of Jesus that the cross and resurrection were not just religious events, but a political challenge to how the world is run. Yoder argued, “Jesus is not just a moralist… He is a strategic thinker whose life represents a new way of being a human community in the face of systemic injustice.” Consequently, the “great stone” as interpreted from the Gospel of Mark, is the physical manifestation of the power that Jesus resisted through His unwavering commitment to truth, even unto the cross. The cross, therefore, was not a defeat. The cross was a direct confrontation with corrupt authority. Yoder believed Jesus showed a new way for a community to exist when the system around them is broken.
History proves that religious movements and leaders directly challenged state power. In 1934, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church issued the Barmen Declaration. This document rejected the Nazi attempt to control the church. During the 1970s and 80s, Archbishop Oscar Romero became a target in El Salvador for his advocacy of the poor. His assassination in 1980 followed his claim that the resurrection is a victory over state-sponsored death. In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared the Apartheid regime a theological heresy. He organized international political pressure to dismantle the legal barriers of racial oppression. These leaders demonstrated that “rolling away the stone” is a collective political act rather than a passive religious hope.
A Legacy of Paskah in Indonesia
The story of the empty tomb shows that even the Roman Empire could not stop a movement that challenged its total authority. It proves that God’s justice is more powerful than a state-ordered execution or a corrupt legal ruling. In Indonesia, this requires a direct rejection of necropolitics and the culture of kerukunan that prioritizes elite stability over the truth. The task for the multi-faith intellectual community is to continually criticize the sedative of an artificial kerukunan that serves only the powerful. For Christians, this faith translates into a persistent public stand that challenges corruption and defends the marginalized. Standing with the victims of this injustice is the true expression of faith.
We wish a meaningful Easter to everyone who celebrates. Christus Resurrexit! Resurrexit Vere!
Rev. Wuysang, thank you for naming the “stone” which exists in every system of government, either by intention or neglect. The pretense of peace at the expense of anyone is an affront to the call of Christ.