Two years ago, during Easter 2023, an atheist friend posed two simple yet staggering questions: "What is Easter? Why should you be happy?"
Far from being a theologian, I responded through my ATABAY article Easter Letter to My Atheist Friend not with doctrine, but with a story - a story of a boy named Kian, a seventeen-year-old from a struggling family of four.
His mother worked as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia. His father ran a modest sari-sari store – an enterprise Kian helped manage every morning from 5:30 a.m. to noon before heading to school. His nights ended with small talk among neighborhood friends, walking familiar streets, breathing in the life of a community that knew him well.
The Memories They Hold
For those closest to him, Kian lives on in fragments of memory.
For Ed, his childhood friend, Kian is that boy who would break into a disco dance as they jogged past Eternal Gardens.
For Manny, his older brother figure, it was Kian asking for help writing a love song.
For Marie, his neighbor, it was their boat rides to school – every conversation punctuated with a punchline.
Those were snapshots of a boy full of life as captured by Richard Calayeg Cornelio in his Philippine Collegian article. But on that night, at around eight, Kian’s story was rewritten.
A Life Cut Short
Near his home, plainclothes officers arrived on motorcycles, handguns drawn. In an instant, they grabbed him, struck him, and dragged him away in a headlock.
Later, Kian’s body lay curled against a muddy corner near a pigsty. He wore a blue shirt and boxer shorts. A gun was found in his left hand – despite him being right-handed – an inconsistency that echoes louder than words when he tested negative for gunpowder residue.
The autopsy revealed the horror: Two gunshot wounds to the head – one inside his ear, another behind it. A third bullet in the chest. Fired at close range, the gunman stood over him while he kneeled, face-down, most likely begging for mercy.
A witness heard Kian scream, “Tama na po! May test pa ako bukas!” (Stop, please! I have a test tomorrow!) His last words – pleading and desperate.
The Cry of Abandonment
In this Lenten season, Kian’s final moments bring to mind another desperate cry – one that shook the earth from noon to three in utter darkness:
“My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?”
We all wrestle with this anguish. Why me? When the weight of loss is unbearable, when a future slips through grasping fingers, when dreams scatter like dust.
Why me, Lord? Passing this test meant everything to me and my family.
What could passing that test mean for Kian?
A step closer to his dream – of no longer using cooking oil to massage his father’s aching limbs. A step closer to his dream – of bringing his mother home so she could leave behind the hardships of domestic work overseas. A step closer to his dream – of beds for every sibling in the family. A step closer to his dream – of growing their sari-sari store, the small business that sustained them. A step closer to his dream – of becoming a policeman.
How cruel the irony.
The Unanswered Questions
As I sat writing the letter, my Bible rested beside another book “Disappointment with God” by Philip Yancey on my desk. I hadn’t placed it there intentionally. Maybe, somehow, I anticipated my atheist friend’s disappointment with my answer.
Yancey’s book raises three piercing questions:
Is God unfair?
Is He silent?
Is He hidden?
Kian’s family, like so many others, was too poor to afford a proper burial. His grave was leased for five years – after which his remains were dug up to make room for someone else.
Still, Scripture is filled with promises for the poor: “Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and oppressed.” (Ps 86:1) “If the poor cry out to me, I will hear them; for I am compassionate.” (Ex 22:26) “For I know the Lord will secure justice for the needy, rights for the poor.” (Ps 140:13)
God’s love for the poor is proclaimed over and over in the Bible. And yet – where is He in their suffering? Even theologian C.S. Lewis, grieving his wife’s death, asked:
Where is God?
Where the Cross Stands
I struggled to find an answer to my atheist friend’s questions. Then, Yancey’s words surfaced:
“Isn’t that what God did at Calvary?... The cross that held Jesus’ body, naked and scarred, exposed all the violence and injustice of this world.”
“No one is exempt from tragedy or disappointment – not even God Himself.”
Good Friday shattered the illusion that life is fair. Easter Sunday revealed the answer beyond fairness – the promise of redemption.
Easter is a glimpse of what is to come.
A Hole in My Letter
I closed my letter with a passage from Revelation 21:4.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
This was the final word I offered my atheist friend, followed by a simple “Happy Easter.” Yet, inwardly, I myself doubted he was gratified with my answer. Maybe I was no different from Doubting Thomas, waiting for proof.
And in that uncertainty, I left a hole in my letter. A longing. A rhetorical question:
Haven’t we felt in our bones that the International Criminal Court is God’s intervention?
History Moves by God’s Hands
On March 11, 2025, nearly two years after I penned that “Easter Letter to my Atheist Friend,” the unthinkable happened: former president Duterte was arrested and flown to The Hague.
The event unfolded with a swiftness that defied logic, a series of twists and turns that seemed almost surreal. For a man whose popularity, power, and influence had cast a long shadow over the nation, such an outcome felt inconceivable. His vast network, his grip on the country’s political machinery – these were barriers that, by human reckoning, appeared insurmountable.
And yet, history moved. Not by human hands alone, but by a force greater than any earthly power. As the popular verse in the Bible goes, “Nothing is impossible with God.”
What seemed unattainable became reality. What felt like a distant hope became a moment etched in time. The rest, as they say, is history – a history written not just by the hands of men, but by the unseen hand of God, guiding the arc of justice toward its rightful end.
And today, this Easter, may we embrace its quiet yet undeniable truth – the triumph of hope over despair, of justice over silence, of love over loss.
May we find meaning not only in the resurrection but in the resilience of the human spirit, in the unwavering belief that light will break through even the darkest nights.
As we stand in the presence of this promise, may we look at one another, with unburdened hearts that truly mean it when we say: “I’m happy this Easter.”
Content and editing put together in collaboration with Bing Microsoft AI-powered Co-pilot
Head photo courtesy of ChatGPT
Still photos courtesy of Facebook, Freepik, Getty Images, PosterMyWall, AZ Quotes
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