Mumia has been fighting for his life for 18 years on death row, against his much-contested conviction for the shooting death of Philadelphia policeman, Daniel Faulkner. His requests for a new trial are called for not only by his long-time supporters, but also by the normally cautious human rights organization, Amnesty International, and even by a research lawyer writing for the mainstream, American Lawyer magazine. Note how Mark's Gospel actually prompts us to follow this Jesus and so manifest the resistance Mumia has shown in his own struggle and writing. We are given no explanation about who this is, but most significant is what this strange figure says about where their Jesus is to be found. The young man points them toward Galilee.
Easter dawns with a word about Galilee.
Galilee was not just a quiet pastoral scene where some gentle Savior-Shepherd did some teaching. No, Galilee was a site of daily suffering and resistance. Galilee was a district where the rural poor suffered poverty and indebtedness. Galileans offered up their desperate, forced labor, their foodstuffs and animals, to service the religious and political system of the privileged who lived in the urban centers. Their lives were extracted from them on a daily basis.