Searching For the Meaning of “Good” Friday

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God, Good Friday, Jesus, love, religion

I’ve never been quite sure what the “good” in Good Friday meant. Perhaps we see beyond the pain, torture and death of Christ to the event of Easter. We live in those awful moments not in the moment itself, but in the promise of Sunday.

That seems to trivialize it a bit for me, and it doesn’t satisfy. I know that the Passover, celebrated as the Last Supper by Christians is that wonderful celebration by Jews of the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. It celebrates freedom. And no doubt as the Synoptic Gospels relate, this date for the Last Supper of Jesus (the first night of Passover) serves to symbolize our liberation from sin.

John changes the mix a bit by placing the Last Supper not on the first night of Passover, but the day before, when the lambs are slain for the meal. He likens Jesus to the lamb slain. The general symbolism remains the same.

I am not a believer of substitutionary sin–the theory that Jesus took upon himself our sins and died for them– a demand of a God who requires payment for a sinful world. Such a God, to me at least, is both harsh and ugly–sending his own son to die in the most horrible of ways.

Rather I see, (note that these ideas are surely not my own, but are the theology of many a learned scholar and teacher as well as believers) that Jesus by his willingness to die for his beliefs, shows us the perfect way to engage with this creator we call God. Jesus, in dying, pays the ultimate price for principle, the foundational principle of life–love, no matter what the cost.

For this is the essence of the God that Jesus points us towards. A God who is unimpressed by formulaic ritual and a God saddened by our tendencies to divide ourselves into groups of “saved” “faithful” or “pious” and all others who somehow by human standards fail to reach the mark. So saddened is God by our divisiveness that Jesus shows through his willingness to endure scorn, beating and tortuous death, that even the least among us is worthy of dying for.

As we struggle in our daily lives to come to grips with the deep agonies that divide us as a people and as a world, Jesus on the Cross, stands as testament to the strength that we too can express if we are willing to take up that Cross ourselves and stand for love at all costs.

Jesus stands against those whose primary goal is to protect “number one”. He stands against those who are motivated by greed, self-preservation, and egotistical individual ruggedness. He points the way to a God of grace and love, who calls us daily to be bigger than our selves in our love of brother and sister. This God, so real, so in love with His creation that He becomes one of us, in an effort to show us, by his teaching, suffering and death, what He is really all about.

I speak not of Jesus as the son of God, but as the Son of Man, for the reality or fantasy of Jesus as the incarnate God is beside the point really. If Jesus is so infused with the Spirit of the Transcendent One, then it matters not the creeds we dutifully recite each Sunday. Jesus moved aside as human, and allowed the Spirit of God to envelop him so completely that God really was among us.

All the more important that we be especially careful to separate the Jesus of history from the Jesus of the Church. More and more I find them quite different beings, with quite different agendas. After having read much, I am still in love with Paul and his exuberance for the Gospel, but I recognize that Paul molded the ensuing Church and molded Jesus into that Church. I’m not so sure that it is the Jesus of history whom he never met in the flesh.

We must comb the Gospels carefully I think to find that Jesus–that gentle yet firebrand individual who sought to bring all into the house of God, as true and perfect children. He tenderly attended to the needs of the most broken and rejected in society without asking of them anything in return, other than to put God first in their lives. His anger was invoked by those whom he saw as impeding the people in their attempt to know their God. He pointed the finger and accused them of having lost all sense of why they were doing what they did. It had all become for show, for power, and for accolades.

True piety rested with the many Marys who lived with the Master, the self-less women who sat at his feet, absorbing his wisdom, who anointed his head, washed his feet, and knelt at the foot of the cross, and ultimately went to dress his broken and dead body, and found to their amazement that his real presence washed over them.

If we learn anything from the Friday, called Good, it is that we too can approach God in these simple acts of service–not by asking questions about who deserves and who doesn’t deserve our acts, but in simply being willing to give in love, knowing that the Spirit of God inhabits each and every one of God’s created beings.

Have a blessed Easter Time.

(I know that many of you who read this are not religious, and at best agnostic if not actually atheistic in your outlook. But I think that whatever you believe, you are beloved and understood and accepted by God as you are, and I hope the sentiments I express, resonate in that “human” way that knows no faith.)

It’s a Good Good Friday

Tags

Art, atonement, crucifixion, Jesus, religion, Zoology

I am aware of course that many of you are not believers, at least in a traditional way. And because of that, I try not to spend too much time on things having to do with faith, especially denominational faith. I leave that to my other blog, Walking in the Shadows. However I found this article so compelling that I thought I would share it with you, in keeping with the day.

I have for a long time not believed in what is referred to as “substitutionary atonement” or the tenet that God sent Jesus to earth with the express purpose of suffering and dying for our sins, the sin we carry from Adam’s original sin. It doesn’t comport with my view of God quite simply. As Kenneth R Overburg, SJ suggests, it takes Jesus out as Plan B, and replaced Him with the Word, foundational in creation, planned from the beginning to dwell among creation in the fullness of time.

It is the Incarnational model and centers Jesus as love offering, come among humanity at the right moment in time to offer the WAY to unity with the Godhead. Overburg writes a beautiful and compelling explanation of this interpretation which I think allows many who have rejected Christianity specifically because of the implications of the substitutionary atonement theory. Please enjoy, The Incarnation: Why God Wanted to Become Human.

♦

Isn’t he cute?

And aren’t they lovely?

Blessings to you all!

Room For All in Lent

Tags

God, Inspirational, Jesus, Lent, religion

Image via Wikipedia

Today begins the annual time of penance and preparation for the glory of Easter. Yet, even our atheistic friends can benefit from the challenges posed by the season of Lent.

As children, we all probably recall friends who observed the time. One heard, “what are you giving up for Lent?” I recall many a friend of mine in childhood who blanched suddenly, eyes growing big as saucers. “What’s wrong?” we would ask. And there would be a mumbled “I gave up french fries for Lent” as the offending food slid down the throat unwillingly.

While we still do “give up” things, some of them even food items, we also “give up” old ways that have proven untenable, harmful, or hurtful. We often “add” practices that are designed to bring us in a  more constant “present moment” with the divine.

It is a poor Christian who arrives at Lent, and then decides what practices will be adhered to during the 40 days. It requires a certain amount of thought and prayer. We spend the time in the last weeks and days before Lent in preparing. We contemplate, we uncover, we decide what needs fixing, where we have failed, how we can correct wrongs done.

But even if we give no thought until today, we can still do this. I don’t think God is concerned if we only get in 39 days or 38. It’s the sincerity that counts.

For those who are not in faith, why, Lent provides that same incentive to better ourselves, to end bad habits, to acquire new ones. Indeed it’s ever so much better than New Year’s resolutions. They mostly fail, because the great maw of “forever” brings us to a halt almost before we begin. Observing Lent only requires a commitment to stick with it for 40 days, (more actually since weekends aren’t counted), and that is doable.

Who among us is perfect? Who can’t stand a bit of tweaking around the edges? Who doesn’t want to repair a broken friendship or family relationship? Who doesn’t want to start a new creative endeavor, read more, or engage in more hands-on volunteer work? Now’s the time to make that commitment to stick with it for a few weeks.

Time for a new habit to become a tried and true one. Time to evaluate and institute a change here or there. Time to uncover something more deeply seeded in one’s psyche.

For the faithful, Lent is a time to mourn our failings and offer small penances to God (really to ourselves), attaching consequences to our wrongs. It is our opportunity to grow close to our Lord in his suffering as He chose to show his followers the depths of his belief in the path that  he shows us is  true communion with our Creator. It is our time to work at our sainthood, distant and unlikely as it may well be.

It is odd that we remember the old question: “What are you giving up for Lent?” for in Matthew, Jesus told his disciples the exact opposite. Don’t let the left hand know what the right is doing. Don’t pray in public, nor lament over your fasting. Don’t make a public display of your “righteousness”. (Matt 6: 1-6)

There is no righteousness in shouting to the world all you are doing in Lent. If you are sincere, then keeping those things between you and God are all that is necessary. If your chosen practices are truly meant to improve you, then, no one need be aware.

Take a moment and think whether you might benefit from some changing act or practice during the next few weeks, safely aware that it need not last forever, but just might, if you don’t impose a forever commitment. You might be surprised at the wonders that come your way.

Blessings my dear friends.

 

Related Articles

• How the Season of Lent Can Motivate You (fitsugar.com)
• What is Lent?. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
• Living Lent: a season of life (johnpmcginty.wordpress.com)
• This Lent, clear the debris and go to confession (archden.org)
• Lent 2011! (culturalawakening.wordpress.com)

Channeling the Ghost of Annie Oakley

Tags

Book Reviews, Christ, Congress, Good Friday, health care reform, life in the meadow, Obama, Roman Catholic Church, stupid sayings, teabaggers, The Contrarian

My world is a bit upside down today. The Contrarian has disappeared and been replaced by a strange man who wants to cook my dinner and cook Easter dinner besides. More of a convenient excuse to avoid the church possibly, but hard to turn down in any event. So, I’m at some odds this day, wandering around without “things” to do regarding the main meal of the day.

Sure, I did some wash, and made a carrot cake for tomorrow (the Contrarian has his limits you know). He is making some deviled eggs, and well, perhaps a good deal of the rest is secret at this point. I’m essentially banned from my own kitchen.

~~

I’ve been reading blogs and otherwise just thinking. I ran across this and thought it was quite neat. It purports to be the most twittered tweet of the week:

Obama’s not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare.

You’re thinking of Jesus.

It made me smile.

~~

I’m hot on the trail of a new book to review. Haven’t done any in a while. Delivery was tough given our winter woes, but that is past and it’s time to get back into serious stuff. MacCulloch has written a huge tome on Christianity. He’s the author of the Reformation, another tome I”m presently reading. But I must say, I’m learning a heck of a lot, so I’m ready to give his 1,000+ pager a try.

~~

Going to Good Friday services is always a bit of a gamble with me. Never know how I’m going to feel about it. I usually feel some sadness, some horror at my paltry efforts in the face of so great a sacrifice, and not a little shake of confusion. I can’t explain it well, but I always feel a bit lost.

~~

The Episcopal Cafe has an amazing letter by Rev. Marie Fortune, which outlines what she would tell Pope Benedict about the scandal  should he be interested. Follow the link and read, for it’s well worth it.

One thing I believe in totally, is blaming the media for a witch hunt is exactly the wrong approach. You’d think they would get that.

~~

If you don’t already, catch Dr. James McGrath’s blog, Exploring our Matrix. He scored second in the blog popularity wars. It’s a great blog, and I get lots of good food for thought from it. He also is busy on Facebook where I usually catch up with his posts.

~~

The Wild Reed, has a lovely excerpt from Andrew Harvey’s book, Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ.

Frankly, I could recommend a lot of poetry, but it’s impossible to choose among so many entries. The times do inspire great thoughts no doubt, and I’m in awe as always at how talented so many of my blogging friends are. Do stop by Tim’s Straight-Friendly today as well. His reflections are so beautiful that I’m urging him to collect them for publication. What a lovely inspirational book they would make.

~~

Hate to do this to a Democrat but hey, stupid is stupid. Georgia enters the fray as a new contestant in the weekly show–My Congressman is Stupider than Yours! I have a sneakin’ suspicion they could well win out this week with this one.

It seems that Hank Johnson (D-Ga) weighed in on a discussion of adding more folks to the island of Guam as the Pacific fleet is increasing its presence. It seems that this worries the congressman who is afraid that the the addition of 8000 more people might be one or two too many and cause the island to capsize and drown all the inhabitants.

Yep, that’s right. Don’t know what else to say about it, but I’m swearing off Georgia grown peaches this year just in case. I suggest detours around the state also. And before you think it was an April Fools shenanigan–there is a UTube link to prove it.

~~

And, well, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t hope for a little of this:

It never takes long to find another chuckle in the teabagger repertoire does it? Seems our mayor has a bit of brushing up to do on his English spelling? Perhaps Chester is the village idiot?

Road Signs

Tags

church, faith, God, Jesus, Lent, ministry, spiritual path, spirituality

Psalm 143: 8 says:

Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning, for I put my trust in you;

Show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you.

I read this one yesterday, and it has stayed with me since. It has brought to my attention a nagging, unvoiced concern that has been fomenting within me for some weeks.

For me, this Lenten season has been bittersweet in many ways. It is not at all what I expected, yet, perhaps it has been exactly what it should be–a time of intense thought and prayer, deep meditation on things I perhaps did not expect.

As the harsh winter bore on, and I was forced to cancel more and more of my church ministry activities, a certain almost imperceptible calm set in–indeed a near happiness. I puzzled over this, as you might expect, and dismissed it as some temporary euphoria of “acceptance” of how things were, rather than what I wished.

Yet, I could not get away from the nagging feeling that I was somehow relieved. I have pushed back those feelings for some weeks now, dismissing them as I said, as mere attempts to live with reality. But there was more to it than that.

I have not the doubt that is normal to believers–the doubts which are both real and necessary about faith itself. In fact, doubting is well established in the bible as normal and part of the journey. I’m not feeling that, at this time and place.

What I am doubting are my choices to involve myself in so many ministries at my church. I’ve not been able to fulfill my responsibilities well during this winter season, but that is but a symptom I suspect. What continues to irritate is the feeling that I have in some real manner welcomed the excuse. Not at all consciously, but subconsciously, and now, it is bubbling upward into the day.

I am constructed thusly it seems. After discussing this whole matter with the Contrarian, I was at pains to agree, that I am likely to rush into things full bore as it were, only to find myself enmeshed in more than I can chew, to mix a metaphor or two. My usual response is to simple “disappear” back into the oblivion of anonymity.

I suggested to him, “Sometimes I think, perhaps I should just go to St. Pius’s and backbench there.” The Contrarian’s eyes grew wide. “You would consider going to the Catholic church again?” “No, not in a formal sense,” I replied, “it just represents the feeling I have that I am not up to all this busyness right now.”

“Perhaps that’s what you should discuss with your priest then, instead of just walking away.” And in fact, that is probably as close to being correct as I can imagine. It is the right thing to do. “Look,” he pondered, “you are just in a place in your journey where you aren’t able to give, just receive. There is nothing wrong with that is there?” “No,” I reflectively answered.

Was this my answer? The one I have been praying for most seriously? Gone from a general unease to a focusing in on the issue of which path–was Christ speaking to me through my beloved? I don’t know the answer yet, and am reticent to accept the first answer that seems to my liking.

What I discover, is that the journey is fraught with obstacles. Some of them are obvious–the dark night of the soul, that coldness that comes when we question whether there is a God and if he/she is listening. There is the obstacle of time and place, and the fact that sometimes faith and church don’t coincide, nor does  a faith tradition meet the needs of the heart and soul. 

Now I discover more obstacles. Is my crisis one of pure laziness, selfish desire to not be burdened with a calendar of responsibilities? Or is it simply that God and I need to walk alone at this time, deepening our bond? I met a nun once, and worked with her for a couple of weeks in New Mexico.  A harder working woman I never met. Yet I wondered when she got the time to spend with God, quietly and not while exhausted.

No doubt the same could be said of Mother Theresa and countless others who devote every waking moment to the service of those in need. I am so woefully inadequate to all this. My rather paltry efforts so far are laughable by comparison, yet I am feeling pinched in my spiritual life.

But perhaps I’m supposed to be. Perhaps comfort is a sign that I am taking an easy way. Jesus most certainly did not take an easy way. I can’t imagine him getting up and saying, “heck boys, lets go swimming today and play some soccer, I’m not into all this healing and preaching today.”

Talk about putting on the mind of Christ!  Like John, I am unfit to tie his sandals. And so, I ponder further. Think of me when you pray today, for I am sorely in need of guidance. Saying it straight out seems a start, but truly I lament:  Show me the road that I must walk.

Never Look A Grace Horse in the Mouth

Tags

depression, God, grace, hope, Lent, religion

As many of you know, its been a rough winter here in the meadow. But heck, it has been rough across the land. My complaints have been more to the personal meadow issues than the mere cataloging of inches of snow, and days below freezing or without sun.

I’ve tread water a good deal of the time, putting one foot in front of the other as it were, and not much more. I’ve been sustained in part by the good wishes and commiserating thoughts of so many of you.

It is not until, as my good friend Ruth, over at Visions and Revisions, pointed out, she felt the first bubblings of “hope” returning, that I was able to truly “see” what was going on in my life. I said at the time, that I had not yet had that feeling, but I can relate, that today, I have.

Yesterday, a friend said in words to this effect: “How do I answer my non-believing friends that my faith has logic and sense to it?” One of our clergy replied, “Somethings are not of the mind, but are truth as seen from the heart.” And what follows surely is understandable by the believer and will be dismissed by those who do not believe as so much “wishful” thinking or some such dismissive remark.

For, today, I stand fully aware of the special graces given me during this Lenten period. Graces that have allowed me to persevere in the face of sometimes onerous calamities. As is often the case, grace reveals itself in the people we come in contact with. It certainly expressed that way for me.

Jan at Yearning for God, sent me a wonderful Lenten practice that I’ve been doing on being sensitive to our “carbon footprint”  and being mindful of our consumerism. Ellen, a truly gifted and dedicated friend from church, pointed me in the direction of a site called “Journey to the Cross, which has been a daily source of inspiration. It speaks to me so clearly some days, saying just what I most need to hear. Tim, from Straight-Friendly has been unfailingly supportive and offerer of gems of wisdom that bespeak a very very old soul indeed.

It is in one sense deeply unfair to single out only these four, for indeed there are many, almost too numerous to mention who have been there at the exact time I needed them to be, with words of wisdom, offerings of help, or simple empathetic understanding.

It all broke open for me yesterday, when at last I was able to return to church. To gather for education hour and enjoy and benefit from the amazing gifts of so many was inspiring. To talk about and meditate on “the NOW” with such rich gifts as the members of my parish is grace indeed. To worship together in love and commitment, with sincerity and joy, is inspiring indeed. I came away refreshed, renewed and full of, yes indeed, hope.

Hope bubbled up once more, just as Ruth describes it in her posting of a couple of days ago. Urged forth by the warm welcome I received by so many, and the ease with which I slipped back into familiar but meaningful patterns of prayer and worship, hope returned in the bright sun of a Sunday afternoon.

It was truly not that things were so bad, for truly they were not. Most of the crises I suffered were over fairly soon, within hours some times, within a day or so on others. But the cabin fever mentality is wearing. Those who know depression know what I mean. You awaken with the sigh of another day doing the same old same old, and it seems almost not worth the effort of getting up. The rut of sameness looms large. Just getting out among others helps, changes one’s perspective.

I felt, as I left the church building, the gurgling of a spring within my chest. The birds twittered, my step was more lively. I smiled at strangers, and shared a laugh at the design of shopping carts. I chatted with the young man checking my groceries. I fell back in love with the world again.

I saw, finally the deep grace God has offered me, in the people and places I was able to access. I was reminded of the deep blessing of Carolyn and Karen and Barbara and so many others who checked in with me, and offered words of comfort. God works that way a lot. Through the willingly open person who offers himself as conduit for Grace.

We are urged always to seek to put on the mind of Christ. I am blessed, for I have seen that mind mirrored to me again and again during these past weeks. I didn’t always see it at the time, but I do now. I see the fine tapestry of interwoven lives that encompass me and uphold me. I am grateful. I am blessed. I thank all of you, named and unnamed.

Turn Inward to Follow Outward

Tags

Ash Wedneday, Lent, religion

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

The root of the word “human” comes from the word humus or soil.

Humus is also the root for the word humility.

To be humble is not to be self depreciating, but to be grounded in our relationship with God and the earth. [from: www.simpleliving.org and with thanks to Jan from Yearning for God who sent me this link.]

“. . .let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, . . .” [Heb. 12:1]

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” [Heb. 12:12-13]

Read about Lent being not a time of denial but of transformation at God Politics today.

Read T.S. Eliot’s poem, Ash Wednesday, here.

Peace