Last Monday morning, we walked through a plaza in Cusco, Peru to our debrief at Starbucks.
Passing through crowds of military personnel and police officers, it was clear something was about to take place.
The day before had been Palm Sunday, and the street sides were crowded with people selling intricate palm branches.
But, with heightened security, I was keenly aware something bigger was about to happen.
Later on, we found balcony seats in a coffee shop overlooking the square as crowds gathered below.
In my broken Spanish, I tried to ask what was going on before resorting to Google.
After consulting several articles, I realized that I would be living out my Senior Thesis later that afternoon.
Back in the fall of 2014, I would never have imagined I would be a spectator in the very type of festival I framed my entire thesis statement around.
In college, I spent a semester researching Spanish Catholicism and the impact that early Jesuit missionaries had on Peruvian religion, and how it still shapes the region today.
My thesis followed the patterns of catechism practices that the Jesuit missionaries used that enabled and allowed religious syncretism to emerge in the seventeenth century as they introduced Catholicism to the region.
Religious syncretism refers to the blending of sometimes but not necessarily contradictory beliefs, such as the existence of both Pacha Kamaq, a pre-Incan Andean creator god, and the God of Christianity.
On the Monday following Palm Sunday every year, Cusco holds a festival to honor their most venerated image of Christ, Señor de los Temblores. The image was donated to the church after its construction in the early seventeenth century by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. It is said that the statue stopped an earthquake when it was brought out in 1650, and it has been worshiped ever since.
Watching Señor de los Temblores be paraded around the city, my heart ached for all those who placed their hope in this statue for protection over God. Those who are more wrapped up in ritual, ceremony, and superstition than the perfect sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross, which is commemorated only a few days later.
This past weekend, we made the trek up to Machu Picchu. Over the course of twenty-four hours, we covered 21 miles and 145 flights of stairs.
Starting the scale up the mountain at around 4am on Easter Sunday, I started to feel faint about halfway up the trail of stairs.
Seeing my struggle, my squadmate Caleigh, who had been walking with me, made me give her my backpack. As she took my burden from me, I saw the Gospel message displayed clearly.
God sees our pain and our shame, and He offers to take it from us. We just have to surrender it to Him to gain the freedom that He offers us.
But, it doesn’t end there. As God frees us, He empowers us to do the same for others.
As we were trekking up to Machu Picchu, Caleigh not only lifted my burden, she empowered me to do the same for someone else. Once I had experienced the freedom she gave me, I was able to do the same for another one of my squadmates who was also struggling with the climb.
That is the power of the cross.
Christ took on our sin and offers us freedom.
Freedom from sin and shame. And freedom from ritual, ceremony, and superstition.
And, He invites us to extend that same freedom to others.
Señor de los Temblores paraded down the streets of Cusco.
