John 11:38–40 :
Taking away the Colonial Stone

When Jesus comes to the tomb of Lazarus, the scene is heavy with grief and disbelief. The air smells of death, and the entrance is sealed with a stone. This stone is more than a physical barrier; it represents the weight of finality, of voices and systems that say, “This is how it is, and it cannot change.”

Jesus stands before that closed space, before a community silenced by loss, and says, “Take away the stone.” Perhaps this moment is not only about one man’s return from death but a challenge to every form of domination that seals life away. The stone becomes a symbol of colonial control—the weight of laws and worldviews that have said to Pacific peoples for generations: “Your stories do not count; your wisdom is dead; your culture is buried.”

To hear Jesus say, “Take away the stone,” is to resist that narrative. It is to hear a call to renew mana—dignity, vitality, sacred identity—in communities long diminished by colonial voices. For centuries, Western theology arrived in Oceania with its own categories and hierarchies. It often forgot to listen to the sea, to the wind, to the stories woven into mats, carvings, and chants. Decolonising theologians such as Upolu Vaai, Mercy Ah Siu-Maliko, and Cliff Bird call us back to story over system, community over individualism, and embodied practice over abstract doctrine. They remind us that theology must wear a woven mat, not a scholar’s robe—that it must sit in the circle, not stand at the pulpit.

Seen this way, Jesus’ act at the tomb is profoundly decolonising. He refuses to let death have the last word or allow the community to remain silent behind the stone. He invites the people to act: “Take away the stone.” Power is returned to the community. Resurrection becomes pArcticipatory, relational, shared.

Across the Pacific, reconciliation is often pictured as voyaging together. The Pacific Conference of Churches and the Melanesian Brotherhood embody this vision—people from many islands rowing one canoe. Their unity is not sameness but shared endurance, steering together through storm and calm.

At Lazarus’s tomb, Jesus gathers a diverse crew—mourners, doubters, family, friends—and calls them into action. Resurrection is not portrayed as an isolated act of divine might but as a voyage of reconciliation. Everyone must lend a hand to move the stone. Everyone must trust that life still stirs beneath the silence. In this way, the story becomes a parable of communal healing and restored relationship.

The church, like the voyaging canoe, is called to travel toward freedom—not the freedom of the lone individual escaping death, but the freedom of a people moving together toward dignity, justice, and belonging. Jesus’ words to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” are not a private assurance but a communal awakening. Belief here is shared courage—the courage of a people choosing to roll away the stone together.

Many theologians of Oceania would say that this is the glory of God: not a distant abstraction, but the beauty of community reconciled, culture affirmed, and creation restored to harmony. When we roll away the stones of colonial dominance, silence, and exclusion—when we listen again to the ocean’s own gospel, to the heartbeat of the land, to the wisdom of our elders—resurrection begins.

Across every culture and church there are stones still sealing the tomb: old hierarchies, inherited fears, colonial shadows. Christ stands before them still, his voice echoing across the waters: “Take away the stone.” And when we do—when we act together as voyagers of faith—we find the Spirit of resurrection already breathing among us, turning grief into hope and history into healing.