Suna East MP Junet Mohamed claimed that money exchanged hands among MPs during the impeachment of former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua. [FILE]
Three crosses stand on Golgotha. In the middle, the sinless Son of God. On either side, two criminals — equally guilty, equally close to Jesus, equally near death. Yet only one enters paradise. The difference is posture, not proximity. One thief bows. The other slides — not falls, slides — into hell with his eyes open, running his foul mouth and thumping his chest the whole way down. That is the more frightening image. Falling suggests surprise. Sliding suggests a slow, willing descent, one refusal at a time, right to the edge.
The repentant thief's concern moves quickly beyond himself. He rebukes the mockery. He confesses their guilt. He declares Christ's innocence. In moments, a thief becomes a witness, because grace always turns a rescued man into someone anxious to rescue another. Even dying men can still save someone.
His companion never loosens his grip on self. We assume suffering humbles people. This part of Scripture disagrees. Pain can soften a heart or harden it, and what decides the direction isn't the size of the suffering but the posture already rehearsed long before it arrived. A heart practiced in small refusals will refuse a large one too. Character is not made at Calvary. It is only revealed there.
Kenya has its own Golgothas, smaller and more frequent. A politician stands at a public rally and confesses, almost proudly, that money changed hands to secure votes in an impeachment debate. He does not stop there. He goes on to criticise a fellow parliamentarian — not for taking the bribe, but for spending it badly. This is pride at its brightest. The public announcement is out — we are a vice country! This announcement is not made in private — it is made at a political rally. Chest-thumping at its best. Sin has learned to speak boldly, and shame has forgotten its own name. Even guilt now wants an audience.
Elsewhere, a party wins a parliamentary by-election. The celebrations are loud and immediate — a trouncing, they call it. Speeches are made. Credit is claimed and distributed. A bit goes to God. Another bit goes to the people. But the most goes to the politicians — tacticians is the brand.
Humility, it turns out, is not a popular virtue — not even among the oppressed. The winning is chest-thumped. But real change would come with service-thumping, where work has a mouth all its own — a mouth that speaks in built roads, paid nurses, kept promises, not press conferences. Perhaps service-thumping is rare because it is humility's close cousin — and the moment a person gains a platform, humility is usually the first thing to go.