A Savior that says "MeToo."

I am using as a backdrop to my thought a concept that was/is a rallying name for the feminist movement that aimed to bring people with shared experiences of sexual assault together to amplify the voices of the survivors of sexual violence and work towards ways to support survivor, work with victims and alleviate if not eradicate the social menace. Taran Burke was the first to use the phrase in 2006, later co-opted by American Actress Alyssa Milano in 2017. It seems that we share solidarity of suffering with Christ(a fellowship of suffering) which makes him a partner in our MeToo movement.

In 2020, I penned this thought in my journal. "Christ's participation in human suffering makes it legit for him to say "Me Too." I wrote more in my journal than I can share publicly. I wrote this at a point in the world when pandemics slow everyone down, and with less activity, "my demon" of obsession with human suffering caught up with me. A suffering further amplified and exacerbated by systems and structural evils created by humans that put the Other at the "zone of non-being." I gave so much to the point of being depleted that I started borrowing from my sister-mum to give to people( Thankfully, I paid all my debt before she passed). I wondered where God is in all of these, even as preachers of dooms started various explanations for the pandemic, from God being angry to Jesus is coming to repent or die in a barbecue fire( or hell fire).

I return to one of the few places I found consolation, my bible and my journals. From my journal entries, I affirm that there seems to be no human pain/emotion that Jesus did not experience during his earth walk. Jesus dealt with an oppressive government and religious systems, rejection, grief, anger, hunger, betrayal, weariness, tiredness, nakedness, and thirstiness, and named it. He even accused God of abandonment. My Father, why have you forsaken me" If Jesus felt the love of God and the presence of his Father, he won't have cried out. PoP used to say that many Christians of today will have torn that portion of scripture from the bible because we always want to present a macho Jesus, the one that never cries, feels hungry, gets angry, or feel pain.

Many years back, I started writing a post titled "When God Seems like a Deceiver." It was based on a scripture that I heard Bishop Noel Jones talk about. It is in Jeremiah 20 vs. 7. Jeremiah cried out, "God, you have deceived me, and I was deceived." I had never heard that scripture until then. I was shocked that it was even in the bible. Then I read a few commentaries, articles, and historical background to the text and applied a few principles of biblical interpretations, then I understood why Jeremiah would say that. I also expressed my things to God when my sister-mum died, and I still speak to him on days I can't bear the grief. I told him one day, like Martha, the brother of Lazarus, that if He had done what He was supposed to do when he was supposed to do it, sister-mum would not die. I would not have been brutally honest with God if I had been steeped in religious dogma. But knowing Jesus is acquainted with grief. A savior who could cry without shame at the tomb of his friend knows how grief can make you lose dignity.

I could not get this thought off my mind. As a recovering Nigerian penterascal, I thought maybe, like me, you can consider that whatever you are going through, could it possible that our savior may say "MeToo ."MeToo doesn't change what happened; it won't make the pain of life go away, but for me, it provides temporary relief to know I am not alone.

Hebrew 4:15

We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all - all but the sin.

Posted on Facebook on November 10, 2022

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