- Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

Today we're examining the core messages of the Easter season as part of our "Black Church in Detroit" series, which is produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American history.

We just recently celebrated Easter Sunday, and that's a time of joy, hope, and love in the Black church.

It's a holiday that strengthens our faith and reminds us of the powerful resurrection of Jesus.

Here to talk about the significance of the season are Reverend Larry Simmons, just retired from Baber Memorial AME Church, and Reverend Cindy Rudolph from Oak Grove AME Church.

Welcome back, both of you to "American Black Journal."

- Thank you.

- It's such a pleasure to be here with you, Stephen.

- Yeah, no, it's great to have you guys here in studio.

- In studio.

- Absolutely.

- So, you know, the Easter season is one of my favorites in terms of the church and the pageantry, almost, (chuckles) of the time, but I think one of the things that I always want to come back to is what resurrection means, why it's important, and what it tells us about how we should understand Jesus, how we should understand our faith, and how we should understand ourselves in the sort of modern world.

What does resurrection sort of teach us, or tell us about ourselves?

Reverend Rudolph, I'll start with you this time.

- Thank you, Stephen.

Resurrection is at the center of our theological understanding.

It is the core of what we believe.

We believe that we serve a true and living God, that in spite of what seemed like insurmountable circumstances, Jesus was able to defeat death.

He was able to overcome the grave, he was resurrected from the dead, and he is now our reigning savior.

So this is at the very core of what we believe as Christians.

And what it teaches us is that just as we encounter our own challenges and things that seem insurmountable, things that seem beyond anything that we can accomplish, we too, even in times when we are challenged, we too can be resurrected, reborn, given an opportunity to start all over again.

- Yeah, renewal is the word that kind of pops into my mind.

- Yes, and what Pastor Cindy said is so correct, and the important thing to remember is that it cannot scientifically be proved.

Faith is a conviction of something, and hope is the conviction that things are going to be good or get good in the future.

You can't see it, none of us knows the future, but it is the resurrection of Jesus that gives us who are the faithful the conviction that no matter what the circumstances we're in, that we can be born again, that we can be lifted up.

And, you know, there's a lot of angst going on in the politics of our country, but if you look at a larger window, our planet is in trouble.

We have ice caps that are melting.

We have plastic that is drifting to the floor of the ocean and altering the life cycles in the bottom of the ocean.

We have an island in the middle of the Pacific, I think it is, that's larger than Manhattan, of garbage.

I mean, we have all kinds of large challenges, and for many, they feel hopeless, they feel overwhelmed by it.

The joy of Jesus is that his resurrection convinces us, no matter how difficult it may look to you, God has a bigger plan.

And if we walk in that path, then we will be able to share in that hope.

- What does it mean to walk in that path?

- It means being willing to accept the condemnation of other people who, for whatever their reason may be, don't share that view with you, but if you listen to Christ, he told us, as people were angsting over when it would be, that he would return, he said, "Well, I'm not gonna tell you 'cause I don't know, but I can tell you this, don't be caught sleeping by the door when I come, and this is what you should be doing.

Feed those who are hungry, visit those who are in prison.

Clothe those who are naked.

If you're busy about doing that, then when I come, doesn't matter-" - It'll be okay.

- It'll all be good.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- If I could add to that, when we look at the anxiety, the worry, all of the things that people are feeling nowadays, it seems as though we are walking through a season of Good Friday.

Good Friday, although it ultimately worked out for our good, it did not feel good at the time.

Good Friday represents agony and pain.

Good Friday represents, for those of us, for those who were believers in Jesus at that time, they felt as though their hopes were dying on the cross with him.

And although it ultimately worked out, Good Friday is a place of pain.

But what we have to remember about Good Friday is that resurrection is coming.

So we are able to look back on that now with our 21st century view.

They didn't know that at the time.

And just as we don't know how things are going to work out now, just as there's some agony, you know, worldwide agony, we have to trust in the God that we serve that ultimately things are gonna work out and resurrection is coming, - It's coming, yeah.

You know, I think this plays out differently for people with different experiences, and for us as African Americans, and the angst, the worry of now is just an echo of worries we've had over and over and over again.

And I think without disparaging anyone else, I think you can observe that the reaction among African Americans right now is different because we're like, "Well, here we go again."

(laughs) - Right.

You know, as you as you talk about that, Stephen, I am convinced that the theology birthed in the Black community because of the conditions under which we had to live and that were imposed upon us, forced us to discover the Jesus of liberation.

If you read the scripture, Jesus' first quote from scripture is from Isaiah, but he says, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good tidings to those who are in prison and who are poor."

Jesus came, preaching a gospel which was suppressed because those who held us in bondage did not want that message to come through.

But this goes back again to the fact that hope always rises in Christ, despite the fact that the church organized against our wellbeing, despite the fact that the government passed laws to keep us separated, or suppressed, despite the fact that they prohibited us from reading, despite the fact that our writings were burned, and often people were hung for having done them, in spite of all of that, look how we have risen.

- Right.

Look where we are.

- And that is the message of resurrection day.

Look where we have risen.

That man thrown into a cave as a prisoner rose on Sunday as the King of Eternity.

- And to echo that, I keep saying to my congregation, "This is not our first rodeo."

- Yeah, no.

- We have the resilience, we possess the resilience of those who survived chattel slavery.

We possess the strength and the skillset of those who overcame Jim Crow and legalized oppression, and all sorts of things that we've had to deal with historically.

And so, yes, these are challenging times, but because of all that we have endured down through the years, there's a different way in which we view this, knowing that we will, just as we overcame in the past, we will survive and overcome this, and eventually thrive as well, because yes, resurrection is coming.

- Yeah, and that doesn't, though, it doesn't negate the pain- - Oh absolutely.

- Or the despair that people feel right now.

I wonder what that looks like in your congregations.

- And I do hear that, I hear the pain, I see the anxiety, I see the worry.

I see people, you know, who are federal employees who have gone through, or are going through job loss.

And so there are some very real and present challenges that people are dealing with, and we're navigating through that together.

But one of the things that we've learned how to do is lean on one another and lean on the Lord, trusting that it's going to work out in the end.

It is difficult, and we certainly don't minimize anything that anyone is going through, but we do trust in the midst of that.

You know, the question of the odyssey is why do bad things happen to good people?

Why is there suffering in the world?

None of us really has an answer to that question other than to say, God is with us in those times when we suffer, and it's God who sustains us, gives us the strength, and brings us to the other side.

- Yeah.

Do do you feel a different pressure as the leader of a congregation during a time like this, and do you find that the job looks different?

- It does, but at the same time, and there's biblical evidence of this as well, when people, when there is sort of a global suffering, or a community suffering, it not only brings the community closer together, but it brings the community closer to God.

And so we, as faith leaders, have to help people to navigate that, and have to remind people that God is with us in the midst of this, and it's God who is sustaining us in the midst of this.

So yes, it is a challenge, but at the same time, we're finding more people who are coming back to church now because they're looking for answers.

They wanna know where is God in the midst of this, and so it's our job to remind them, God is with us, God is not absent.

I always say, "Heaven is not on hiatus, the Savior is not on sabbatical, God is present with us in the midst of what we're dealing with."

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- You know, as you look at these times, someone quoted, I think it was Mark Twain, that, "History doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes."

- [Stephen] (laughs) Yeah.

- I believe that to be true.

I don't think every era is exactly the same, but it's similar.

- Yeah.

- And this era that we're in, I believe that the African American community's resilient is actually a model and a reference point for other communities who are unaccustomed to this.

I had conversation with good friends of mine about this, and I said, "You know, I need to use the DNA that my people have generated through 400 years of confronting this behavior and alert you to the fact, they're aiming at you."

- (laughs) Right.

Right.

- Not just us.

- It's not just us.

- And so, you're gonna have to develop that spiritual callous that says, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."

Doesn't mean you aren't gonna suffer.

If Jesus suffered, how come it is we're not going to suffer?

We will.

But the great news is, the hope is, that this won't last all ways.

And the scripture everyone quotes of course, and loves, is "Weeping may endure for a night-" - [Pair] "But joy comes in the morning."

- Yeah.

Yeah.

I want to note the passing of Pope Francis, but note it in the context of what we're talking about, the time and energy and focus that he brought to the idea of liberation, of compassion and connection with people that are considered unworthy or untouchable.

I mean, he had such a powerful message, and it extended far beyond the Catholic church, or the Catholic community.

I think there's a message for African Americans there too.

- Yes.

Yes.

You know, as I listened to everyone speak about the Pope, I had to smile because a lot of them didn't like what he- - Right.

(laughs) - And I was reminded of Jesus telling the disciples when they were arguing with him about somebody baptizing, and Paul said this too, "In order to condemn me, they've got to explain me."

And so even his opponents had to acknowledge his ministry to the least of these.

And so he, even in his death, embodied that missionary, that evangelical spirit of spreading this message of love and inclusion, which is why Jesus came, was to reconcile us to God, and through Jesus to each other.

- One of the things that I appreciated about Pope Francis is that he just epitomized humility, even in death, with the instructions that he's given, in terms of the humble burial that he wants to have, which is a departure from tradition.

And so I just thank God for his Christian witness.

He really lived out the gospel.

He didn't just preach it and proclaim it, but he lived it, and exemplified it in a way that encourages us to go and do likewise.

- Yeah, he wanted us to do it too.

Yeah.

Well, this is a great Easter season, and I'm really grateful to the two of you for coming here to talk with us about it.

- Thank you for inviting us.

- It's always a privilege.

- We'll do it again soon.

- Absolutely.