Good Friday

As far as Easter goes, good Friday has never featured highest on my radar. Ever the eternal optimist I've always been caught up in the miracle of hope of Easter Sunday until I saw the Passion of the Christ and read Pete's excellent book God on Mute and the agonising victory of good Friday seemed higher in my mind...

This good friday I enjoyed making plans. At 1pm after Steve and I spent some time together and bought Montezumas chocolate gifts for our families, some good friends arrived in our living room decked out in their warmest walking gear. The beautiful Helen led us out of Chi and drove us to the top of Bignor hill to embark on a two hour walk through the glorious South Downs.

We walked, talked, laughed and got more than a little out of breath as we made our way back up the final steep hill back to the car. Helen and Steve were teasing me about not stopping to catch my breath, the gradient was steep and in truth my determination had less to do with proving myself and more to do with knowing if I stopped I couldn't guarantee starting again.

My legs started to ache and sweat was appearing at my brow when I glanced up to see the top of the hill. The previously bright blue sky was being invaded by a great black front from the south and the light was being encroached upon. My eye was caught by a shape on the horizon... a cross on the summit of the hill... "It wasn't there when we arrived"... As we got closer the cross revealed itself to be an old fashioned sign post, but it's presence, it's silhouette provoked me to reflect on Jesus journey on a Friday nearly two thousand years ago. My muscles may be aching from a steep hill but it was a pin prick compared to the agony of the path he walked...

An hour later I entered Revelation Church here in Chi. Some of the artists from our community had put together an incredible interactive journey to take us through the story of Easter... it was very beautiful and impacting. I shed a tear as I hammered a nail into a piece of wood and I was captured by a few of the pieces my friends had made.

It is easy to see Easter as just a nice long weekend, it's great to know there is something more deeply refreshing on offer to those who know different...

Comments

[Paul Maurice Martin]

To me, the cross is an incredibly profound symbol. I know what you mean about that tendency to want to get on to Easter, but I feel that Good Friday is in itself optimistic at its depths.

[Carol]

I think it's Matt Redmon who sings, "Oh, the wonderful cross, oh the wonderful cross, bids me come and die and find that I may truly live." This Good Friday I had a wonderfully strange experience that matches these lyrics. Someone sent me a youtube video with a great song set to some of Christ's brutal crucifixion scenes in The Passion movie. As I watched and wept I was struck with the beauty of it. I was truly touched with the magnificent love on display as our Lord suffered so horribly. He did it for me, so that I would never experience God's wrath. The glory of God's love was magnified in the brutality of Christ's suffering. "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my love, my all." Good Friday is wonderful and amazing, and seeing the beauty gave it greater meaning to me than ever before.