A Christian Reflection for an online Lament and Prayer Service for Myanmar.
[This is a Christian reflection offered for an online service of lament and prayers for Myanmar hosted by the Faith Communities’ Coalition and CRPH/NUG Support group Australia on 21 August, 2022. It came a few weeks after the Military’s execution of four democracy activists – Ko Jimmy along with Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Hal Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw.]
I met Ko Jimmy eight years ago in Melbourne. My friend Kyaw Soe Moe introduced me and immediately Ko Jimmy reminded me of a kind of Martin Luther King Jnr figure for Burma. Both were passionate, articulate and had dreams of a better life for their countries. Ko Jimmy was destined to be a voice for Myanmar. I was sure of it. I moved to the UK and in so many ways Ko Jimmy went on to be that voice.
The next time I heard of Ko Jimmy, however, was last month. I was in Mae Sot, on the Thai Burma border, supporting some remarkable Civil Disobedience Movement workers in our Seedbeds Incubator programme when news started to filter through of the Junta’s execution of Ko Jimmy along with Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Hal Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw. When it was confirmed we were all sat there stunned and devastated. We all wept and got angry. How could such evil happen to such good people?
As I prepared for today, there was a line out of MLK’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech that kept returning to me. I looked it up and wonder if it connects them both MLK and Ko Jimmy today.
‘I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.’ MLK
This idea of ‘unearned suffering’ as ‘redemptive’ is a core idea in Christian faith. Indeed Jesus said:
John 15:12-14: ’This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.’
Like Jesus, Ko Jimmy’s and MLK made the ultimate sacrifice, and along with the others, this is not in vain. Ko Jimmy’s love for his friends and country will be the seeds of the new life that Myanmar desperately needs.
What is unique in Jesus is the idea of resurrection. In the Christian imagination, death is not the end and Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits of a new creation.
1 Corinthians 15:2-23: But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.[d] For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human, for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in its own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Jesus defeated death and rose again so we all can. I look forward to the day when I see Ko Jimmy again. A day when all the earth, including Myanmar, is fully free from all evil, injustice, suffering and death. A day when the Lord’s Prayer is fully answered; Heaven is on earth. Until that day let us keep loving one another with a sacrificial love that comes from God.
Let us pray the Lord’s prayer together if we can.
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth (including Myanmar) as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.
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