Within a span of three weeks, the world’s main monotheistic religions have marked significant annual observances – Ramadan for Muslims, Easter for Christians, and Passover for Jews. Specific worship practices during these periods of prayer and reflection differ. But they all touch on common themes of forgiveness as well as redemption or liberation – both from severe external dangers and harsh inner sentiments.
“Forgiveness … forms an important part of what it means to be a Christian (and to be a follower of many other major religions, too),” Financial Times columnist Jemima Kelly wrote recently. In addition to benefiting individuals, she noted, “It can allow nations to heal after decades of conflict [and] bridge the kind of deep divides … we now see in our societies.”
Celebrating Eid, at the end of Ramadan, “is all about forgiving people,” according to Sadaf Farooqi, a writer and Islamic educator based in Karachi, Pakistan. The day’s gifts, visiting, and shared meals are “for everyone, not just for those whom we like,” she wrote in an online post, with a call to “develop the ability and strength to forgive others and move on from past grievances.”
News reports and social media posts over the past year indicate that mercy and empathy are sometimes seen as weaknesses rather than moral virtues. In the United States, political rhetoric around domestic and international differences might seem to bear this out. Yet, there are signs that individuals yearn to place their trust in values and a power that goes beyond personality or politics.
“People tell me all the time that they are searching for richer, more meaningful lives,” according to Lauren Jackson, who writes for Believing, a weekly newsletter on religion in The New York Times.
Some of this meaning, Ms. Jackson said, is found in “redemption stories – tales of trial, triumph and deliverance to a new world of possibilities.” Passover and Easter offer examples of such deliverance, the former marking the Jews’ escape from enslavement in ancient Egypt; the latter venerating Jesus’ resurrection after being crucified as well as his forgiving spirit.
“A liberative story offers freedom for everybody,” theologian and Wheaton College professor Esau McCaulley told The New York Times. “It offers the transformation of the person and the society.”
The past week has offered evidence of liberative stories at a global and individual level – in the successful launch of the Artemis II lunar mission and the weekend rescue of two downed U.S. airmen in Iran.
In an Easter message from space to a worldwide audience, Artemis crew member Victor Glover said of our planet, “In all of this emptiness … you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.” This, he said, “is an opportunity for us to remember … who we are.”
In his first radio message, sent after about 24 hours of surviving in a remote mountainous region in Iran, the second U.S. airman simply affirmed: “God is good.”
