THIS year Easter coincides with Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations.

April 18 is both Good Friday and Independence Day and Zimbabweans are spoilt for choice on which one to celebrate: Gamba rakafira Zimbabwe kana kuti the son of the God of Israel?

But for the discerning, the historical freight in the coincidence is abnormal and translates to a mess of ideological contradictions which African scholarship has, so far, failed to straighten out. It is a mess that must be meticulously unpacked in order to yield ideological clarity that allows us to interpret our reality in a manner that leaves us  with self-respect.

What Happened on Good Friday?

The night before Good Friday had been the last supper for Jesus and his disciples. During that last meal, the son of the God of Israel had foretold his own betrayal by one of his inner circle and he had identified Judas Iscariot as the one. And he had also foretold that, Peter, the rock upon which he would build his church, would deny him three times before the cock crowed. 

After midnight, in the wee hours of Friday, the prophesies had begun to fall into place like clockwork. 

Judas had embraced and kissed Jesus in an identification act pre-arranged with his enemies for a 30-pieces-of-silver bounty. 

Jesus had been arrested. 

And his disciples had scattered.

Peter had been identified as Jesus’ accomplice and he had vehemently denied it three times before the cock crowed.

Judas had been struck by guilt conscience after the arrest of Jesus (Matthew 27:3-4) and he had taken back the 30 pieces of silver to the conspirators who would not take the money back into the temple coffers and used it to buy the ‘Field of Blood’ where non-Jews would be buried. 

Judas had proceeded to commit suicide. 

Jesus had been taken to Pontius Pilate, to Herod and back to Pilate on the cooked-up charges of claiming to be the King of Jews as well as son of God with the capacity to destroy the temple in Jerusalem and rebuild it in three days.

On the failure of the charges to stick, the mob had been offered his freedom on the traditional amnesty that required the release of a prisoner of the people’s choice. The mob had chosen Barrabas, a Zealot who had been imprisoned for inciting a rebellion against Roman rule.

On the way to Golgotha, Jesus had faltered under the weight of the cross and an African, Simon of Cyrene, had been forced to carry it for him.

And Jesus had been crucified between two thieves – one good and the other bad. The bad thief had mocked him and the good thief had asked for forgiveness and, to be remembered in heaven. The good thief had been promised a place on the Father’s table in heaven.

Roman soldiers had cast lots for Jesus garments while waiting for him to die.

And then he had died and a sympathetic man, Joseph of Arimathaea, had asked for his body in order to give him a proper burial in his own tomb.

And the chief priests and Pharisees who had demanded his death had requested security of the grave and the posting of a guard so that no claims could be made that he had risen from the dead.

And the whole chain of events was, in the longer history, supposedly following centuries-old ‘scripts’ published by ancient Israeli prophets who included Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.

Enter John the Baptist; Enter Jesus; Enter the devil; Enter Peter; Enter Judas; Exit John the Baptist; Exit Judas; Enter Pontius Pilate; Enter Simon of Cyrene; Exit Simon of Cyrene; Enter Dismas, the good thief  …

The good and the bad had all of them been mere mortals, playing out tragic roles assigned without their knowledge. ‘Like clockwork’.

Millennia before ‘Enter Jesus’, Greeks had introduced theatre to the world and it had been to entertain. Actors auditioned and won their parts on the basis of competence. Actors survived their assigned roles and went back to their private lives to await future assignments totally different from the previous. Theatre was a profession and is still a profession that now translates to billion dollar industries in many countries.

But not in the Hebrew ‘scripts’! 

What happened in Jerusalem was for real. It was real-life drama and the executive producer was the God of Israel.

The part in which Jesus dreaded his part in the drama is particularly moving. How he pleaded with the producer to let the cup pass him, if possible. How he, in the end, conceded that it was the author’s will and not his own that must prevail. The script was already cast in stone. 

It should interest many to note that Simon of Cyrene, the African who was forced to carry Jesus’ cross after he had faltered under its weight carried it the whole way via Dolorosa, to the place of sorrow without falling. There is no history of the African faltering under the same weight. 

African scholarship has missed the inconsistency between the faltering of Jesus and the titles of ALMIGHTY and LION OF JUDAH. It has also failed to imagine the meanings carried in the fact that out of the 31 102 verses that constitute the Bible, only three verses (Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21 and Luke 23:26) were assigned to carry the story of the African Simon of Cyrene who carried Jesus’ cross after the protagonist assigned to carry the burdens of humanity in its entirety had faltered under its weight:

“And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.” (Matthew 27:32)

The conversation between Jesus and the two thieves inadvertently foregrounded the fate of the African who had relieved the protagonist assigned to carry the burdens of humanity in its entirety and received no reward where the Hebrew thief, Dismas, was promised a place on the table of Jesus’ Father in heaven for simply saying that he deserved his punishment and Jesus did not.

The oxymoron in the good thief who was promised a place on the table of Jesus’ Father in heaven has, unfortunately, also not been fully appreciated by followers of Jesus who condemn African freedom fighters for taking back what was stolen from them by those who gave the same Jesus to Africans as a way of domesticating them into servitude. African freedom fighters have been labelled bad thieves even for retrieving stolen heritage from the real thieves for redistribution back to the victims. 

While in the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman who sought the healing of a daughter afflicted by evil spirits Jesus explicitly questioned the moral of giving the children’s bread to the dogs, those who brought the same Jesus to Africa wanted the dogs that stole the bread from African children to retain it while the African children fed from the crumbs that fell from their own table.

The dialogue between Jesus and the desperate woman translates to the sum total of the biblical segregation of Jews from non-Jews. 

Matthew 22: “And behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demo . . .’

Matthew 24 :“But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel . . .

Matthew 26: “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” 

Matthew 27: “But she said, ‘Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” 

Matthew 28: “Then Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt’. And her daughter was healed from that hour.

But then, perhaps that is what drama is all about. 

The playwright is driven by self-interests. They let live and they let die at a time and place of their choice and for interests they want to promote. The playwright is the potter in whose hands the clay cannot determine what it wants to be. 

And in the foregoing regard, it is worth the African scholar’s time to remember that centuries before Simon of Cyrene came from Africa to be forced to carry Jesus’ cross, another African, the Pharaoh of Egypt, had had his heart hardened to not let his Hebrew slaves go: 

“But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” (Exodus 4:21).

And the objective of the “playwright of the story of Israel” was to simply show his power over a hapless being of his own creation. 

The Hebrew good thief, Dismas, was forgiven and promised heaven on the cross in the same manner Simon Peter, the  Hebrew who denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed on Good Friday retained the favour of being the rock upon which the Son of God would build his church notwithstanding this blatant exhibition of cowardice. 

And the church Jesus built upon the rock called Peter turned out to be the Catholic Church and it lists him as St Peter and the first Pope. 

And, in his letter to churches he founded in Asia the very same Peter  insisted: “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.” (1 Peter 2:18)

And the horrific implications of this lie in the context in which Jesus promised not to change even an iota of the old Law of Moses (Matthew 5:18); the same Moses who led Jews out of slavery and the same Moses whose law forbade the enslavement of Jews but allowed the same Jews who had been freed from Egyptian slavery to enslave non-Jews.

“Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves …

“Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. (Leviticus 25 vs. 42 and 44)

This means that St Peter, the first Pope — the very same rock upon which Jesus built his church — was for slavery of everyone else except Jews! Another Pope would narrow the distinction of down to sub-Saharan black Africans

The 208th Pope, Nicholas V, would on June 18 1452 issue to King Alfonso of Portugal  the first of a series of papal bulls (letters) that authorised and blessed the enslavement and sale of sub-Saharan Africans. 

It would take just over 100 years for the Portuguese Catholic Father Goncalo da Silveira to bring the story of Jesus to Munhumutapa’s court. In the context of Pope Nicholas V’s command to enslave sub-Saharan Africans he would be the scout. He touched ground on December 26 1560 and lasted just under 100 days. They killed him on March 6 1561 and threw his body into the crocodile-infested Msengezi River. He was 35. Those sent to avenge the charlatan were led by Francisco Barreto but none reached Munhumutapa’s court. They were decimated by malaria along the Zambezi River. And, that is how Zimbabwe escaped the papal sentence to servitude.

This means that after the first time on the streets of Jerusalem when Roman soldiers had forced the African, Simon of Cyrene, to carry Jesus’ cross, Pope Nicholas V’s papal bulls were the second decision by Rome to make Africans carry the cross and, this time, it was the cross of Western economic development. It was a cross they would carry for over 400 years until the machines of the West’s Industrial Revolution made them redundant. It is estimated that up to 60 million perished in the holocaust. And, just like with the African Simon of Cyrene after the task was completed, the survivors were ‘freed’ without apology or compensation. 

In the United Kingdom, it is Queen Elizabeth I, head of the Church of England that was both Reformed and Catholic who started the English trade in African slaves. In 1564, a special ship commissioned for this purpose was christened ‘Jesus’ and it was captained by Admiral John Hawkins. In light of the role Christianity would play in the colonization of Africa the christening carried tragic symbolism. 

British scouts for colonisation would come to Zimbabwe in the mid-1800s at a time machines of the Industrial Revolution were replacing the African slave in Western economies. And it turned out that the very same vehicle the British monarch had christened ‘Jesus’ to carry African slaves was the very same one re-invented to colonise those who had survived slavery.  

The Catholic Church founded upon St Peter whom Jesus discovered would be a major beneficiary of the colonial land swindle in Zimbabwe. 

The bloodiest resistance to colonial occupation in Africa would take place in Zimbabwe and the solution proffered by the church to quell it was to kill all the Shona above the age of 14. 

The war ended with the Wednesday April 27 1898 executions of the spirit mediums of Nehanda and Kaguvi who had championed the resistance. The executions caricatured what had happened on the Good Friday of AD 31 in Jerusalem.

To be continued