By The Reverend Hanns Skoutajan
T G I F —Thank Goodness Its Friday — Good Friday, that is. However, no one will greet you with “Merry Good Friday.” I have been unable to find any greeting cards, not even in the Sympathy section of a Hallmark rack, that relates to Good Friday. It is a quiet day, a dour day.
It is the only Christian holiday that has defied the tide of commercialization. Consider the fate of Christmas three months earlier, it has been totally transformed. Born on that “silent night, holy night”, Jesus’ natal day was soon eclipsed by the feast of one of his sainted disciples, Nicholas. His special day, December 6, was postponed to the winter solstice and his name shortened to Claus, then Santa Claus. He has become patron saint of consumerism.
Easter, following hard on the heels of Good Friday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. It has been symbolized by an egg-laying bunny, pretty chocolate eggs, yum yum! Each Easter I haul out my collection of coloured eggs which I obtained in Prague many years ago and along with several beauties I bought last year in that historic city on the Moldau, they enhance our dining room table for the season. It has been explained to me that the egg is meant to remind us of new birth, breaking through the shell of death. Christians have referred to themselves an Easter People.
Of course Easter is a time to celebrate survival from the snows and cold of winter. Women folk burst out in their Easter bonnets and used to join the Easter Parade “on the Avenue, Fifth Avenue.” Truly this year as we emerge from our igloos we have much to feel relieved about.
But Good Friday is a about death and dying, not a great event to raise the spirits. Traditionally Christian teaching has it that Jesus, the Son of God, was sacrificed on the cross for the sins of humanity, to appease an angry God and thus to win salvation for our souls ; “How great Thou art that saved a wretch like me.” Evangelists can be heard and seen thundering that message over the airwaves brandishing a much worn Bible.
That is a bit of a stretch for many of us moderns. For me that “marginal Jew” as John Dominic Crossan, an outstanding biblical scholar and member of the hailed or derided Jesus Seminar referred to him, is a representative of all those who have dared to stand up for the oppressed and wounded through all of history. Like so many of every faith he was betrayed, arrested, tortured, brought before a kangaroo court and finally brutally murdered. Mel Gibson virtually made mince meat of him in his film of the passion. But this story has been retold countless times by different actors in almost every age and certainly today.
As in the case of many of his followers the grave could not contain him. He came alive in his disciples. Like John Brown his body lay a moldering’ in a grave somewhere, unmarked, unfound, but his soul goes marching on.
That faith embodied by emboldened disciples marched on throughout the Mediterranean world and within 300 years became the state religion of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately this Church became obsessed with wealth and power and emulated the secular structures of the state. Spreading throughout the world that gospel has both healed and hindered many. Of course its history is also studded with noble souls who stood up for peace, justice and human rights. These suffered the fate of their role model of the early Common Era.
Good Friday is a feast of the spirit, embodied in countless of the living and those released from mortal bonds.
The Spirit keeps a’ movin’ on.
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