EASTER IN CAMBODIA

Carol Loh, MMS Country Director of Cambodia. To destress, she shops at the supermarket.

In the Christian calendar, Easter is an important event that follows after the commemoration of Good Friday. In most parts of the world, the church places equal emphasis on Easter and Christmas. In some places, Easter is given more emphasis as this is the hope for all Christians to eternal reconciliation with God. As Paul puts it so emphatically, - without the resurrection of the Lord Jesus our faith would be in vain (1 Corinthians 15:17).

However, as the church In Cambodia is relatively young, Christmas is much more celebrated than Easter. Also, Easter usually falls in April which is about the same time as the Khmer New Year. As such, for some years in COSI, the children did not get to celebrate Easter as they were home for the Khmer New Year. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, they were unable to go home and so we were able to celebrate Easter together. The events leading to Easter include Palm Sunday and Good Friday. On Palm Sunday, the children waved palm leaves as they sang songs of praise. The children spent the Holy Week going through the last week of the life of Jesus on earth. During vespers, they acted out the different scenes culminating in the final foot-washing, denial of Jesus, and the crucifixion. They also made crosses to symbolise Jesus’ love and sacrifice. On Easter morning, they listened to the Easter message during the worship service. And they ended the service with activities like the drawing out the scene of the resurrection and the painting of Easter eggs.

Last Easter, Glory Trinity Methodist Church members offered food and packed them as gifts to donate to the poor and needy in the community. The Prek Ompel Methodist Church commemorated Good Friday with foot-washing and an Easter service of praise and worship. At The Third Place at Odem and Antioch Methodist Church, the church members gave out Easter eggs beautifully painted by the youth and children to passers-by after the Easter service. They took the opportunity to share the message of Easter with them. Most churches took the time to fellowship over an Easter meal after the worship services.

Last year, at the Methodist School of Cambodia, the students were taught about Good Friday and Easter during the Christian Education classes. Throughout the week, the Chaplain shared Holy Week stories during the morning School Assembly. The students celebrated Easter by singing praise songs and the Chaplain shared the message on the Risen Lord. In the past, before the pandemic, special programmes with sights and sounds were used to help the students have an indelible impression on the events leading to Good Friday and Easter. For example, when the story on the betrayal of Judas was told, the sound of the counting of coins was used. When the story of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus was told, the room was sprayed with perfume. Ropes were used to show how Jesus was tied to the cross. And on the final crucifixion day, a big cross was placed in the room for the students to write the bad things they did and to stick them onto the cross as a way of confession. Then, they would move to another room where candles were lighted up and they would kneel to reflect on what the Lord Jesus had done on the cross. Then they would say a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the forgiveness of their sins. Upon coming out of the room, an ‘angel’ would proclaim to them that the Lord Jesus had risen as they were ushered to an empty room signifying the resurrection of the Lord. They would rejoice and march on to the church sanctuary in the school where an Easter service would be held with the singing of hymns and songs of praises, and a message given by the Chaplain.

In Phnom Penh, concerts were organised by Christian organisations to celebrate Easter. In one of the concerts organised by the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia and the Far East Broadcasting Corporation, about 800 people attended the three-hour long Easter celebration. It was said that some churches which had not celebrated Easter before started to do so for the first time with the awareness of Easter after such concerts.

The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith to an eternal relationship with Him. The yearly commemoration of Good Friday and the celebration of Easter is a reminder of God’s love and hope for people everywhere who would believe and accept this truth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. May the light of the resurrected Lord be the shining ray of eternal hope for the Cambodians.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25,26)