The power of a body

I've just watched an amazing programme about methods of protest which included the story of Rachel Courie who opposed the destruction of a family home in India by sitting in front of the bulldozer and was killed as it ran over her, backed up and ran over her again, just to make a point. This horrific story must provide a challenge to anyone with any understanding of God's heart for justice. It reminded me of the Sebastian Acevedo Movement against Torture (for more info see Cavanaugh's Torture & Eucharist) who protested against the kidnapping and torture carried out by the Pinochet regime in Chile during the 1980s by taking liturgy to the streets, appearing in groups in crowded squares, performing liturgical and poetic mini services and disappearing again , in many cases the police would swoop in and attemp to silence them with gas, water and dogs, in this way they in their own bodies displayed the unjust torture suffered by the unseen victims and allowed the authorities to condemn themselves in full view of the world.

The exposure and condemnation of injustice through the embodiment of suffering is profoundly Christ-like. Biblical images of the suffering redeemer abound, Hosea lived it, Isaiah wrote about it, all pointing towards Jesus who embodied the bondage of sin and exposed its evil grip on humanity in his very public and torturous death. I would like to think that if I had been in Chile during such oppression I would have been a part of this courageous and convicted Movement against Torture; but in my context Christ's radical indentification with me in my sin challenges me to seek to indentify with the community around me, in its bondage and need in order to expose and condemn this bondage and demonstrate the liberating power of the kingdom of God.