Via Crucis in Helsinki’s Senate Square.

Thousands of us stood in a park on a Saturday night and watched Judas betray Jesus on a hilltop. At least, I think that’s what’s happened. My knowledge of the Bible is nearly as poor as my Finnish. Spotlights and klieg lamps lit up the actors and loudspeakers thundered across the lawn as Jesus spoke to us. Every Easter, Helsinki reenacts the crucifixion of Christ and it’s not just the actors — we’re all involved. 

After Jesus was captured, we followed his procession to Senate Square where he received his sentence, and then we walked with him to the steps of the church as he carried his cross through the crowd. Six thousand of us marching dead silent in the dark on a cold April night; the only sound was gravel crunching underfoot and the occasional tattoo of a military drum. 

This was ceremony, but it was also strange theatre: the Roman captors wore riot gear, Pontius Pilate sported a flashy sharkskin suit, and the jeering crowd had McDonalds, Nike, and other corporate logos stitched to their robes. This passion play had some teeth and as the Finnish sermons boomed around me, I wondered if the anti-establishment jag found its mark or simply played like an old issue of Adbusters. 

These details don’t matter. The simple act of walking in the dark with six thousand strangers was the thing. I felt an unexpected sense of community coupled with heavy alienation as my mind flashed back twenty years ago, when I stood at the back of a church in Michigan with my Mom while everybody took Communion. I cannot imagine what the believers must have felt as they marched behind the ghostly outline of a man dressed as their savior dragging a cross through their city. As I watched the reenactment of the world’s most famous execution, I admired the beauty of faith and feared the power and pageantry of cults.

My antagonism to religion is so intense that it often unsettles me — but that night I was envious of the faith on display and it left me wondering if I will ever believe in something so strongly.