So, here it is. I’ve been offended beyond words this year. It’s been taking place every year but this year it’s gotten to me. Churches are having Easter Worship Services on Good Friday. On the day when Christianity commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus, some churches are going to sing “Alleluia” and celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. While we wait until Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death and the grace, they’re skipping the death and the grave part and going to celebrate Easter on the day Jesus died.
This should not be confused with churches that have Saturday Night Easter Vigils. Easter Vigils are a long trad
ition and take place after sundown on Saturday night which makes sense. In Jewish tradition Sunday started at sundown on Saturday night and so celebrating Easter after dark is not inconsistent with Christianity. But celebrating Easter on Good Friday is a whole other story.
My favorite poet of all time was a 17th century Anglican priest named John Donne. Donne’s poetry was a mixture of profound religious poetry which as being an Anglican priest, was not inconsistent with his being. His secular poetry was actually often a bit risqué and funny. I loved his cleverness and his plays on words. Anyone who knows me well knows I LOVE to play with words.
His greatest poem, to me, was Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward. I’m including it at the end lest you want to read it. He writes of riding westward when he should be looking to the east. His word:
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me
His soul’s form was bending toward the east, but the rest of him was riding to the west.
Good Friday inspires this. Most of us, if we are honest, want to turn west and not look. The cross is horrible.
The cross is horrible. Crucifying someone was dreadful and awful. Jesus’ death was a horrible death. We cannot make light of this.
Over the centuries we have attempted to soften the blow as much as we can.
Pontius Pilate has often been portrayed as a decent man who was caught in God’s great cosmic drama. He, the only person in Jerusalem who could actually order this kind of execution, washes his hands in a bogus attempt to say he had no responsibility. Pilate, who was historically brutal and bloodthirsty, was guilty of executing an innocent man. No amount of water was going to clear him of this.
Judas betrayed Jesus for money. We often like to say that he too was an innocent pawn in God’s great cosmic plan. The reality is that Jesus was not difficult to find. The Romans did not need Judas but they found great pleasure in turning one of Jesus’ own. Judas recognizing his own treachery hanged himself.
Many people to not attend Worship on Good Friday. We love Easter and there is much to love about Easter. It speaks of Jesus’ triumph over death and the grave. Easter teaches us that Good Friday can be overcome. The horror of Good Friday brings us to the joy of Easter. Only death can bring about resurrection. To live forever we must die. For Jesus to come back, he had to depart. For Jesus to live again, he had to die and the day of his death was Good Friday.
Good Friday reminds us that Jesus was betrayed. It reminds us that Jesus was arrested and that he was denied. It reminds us that "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” and the world killed Him. Is this harsh? Yes, it is very harsh but it is also very real. Jesus came into our midst and we killed him. Most of us, if we are brutally honest with ourselves, would have either been outside in the mob screaming for blood or staying home and pretending the events were not taking place. Like Donne, we’d have our faces pointing westward.
In one of the four Suffering Servant Songs in Isaiah 50, the suffering servant says, “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. 7 The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; 8 he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together.” Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together!
Take note, in the Gospels, who contents with Jesus, who stands with him. There is nary a soul…
One of the roles of the Christian Church is to tell the story and retell the story over and over again. It’s is our job to invite people to turn and look eastward. It is our job to at least make sure we acknowledge that Easter does not come without Good Friday. Most of us would love to ignore this day, it is a dreadful day. It is a day when the guilt of what humanity did to God’s Son is exposed for the world to see.
Tragically, and obscenely, some churches are choosing to celebrate Easter that day. To me, it’s downright obscene. It crushes my spirit, it crushes my soul. Has Christianity turned so much into ‘feel good’ that we can no longer recognize that to walk in the light requires a journey into the darkness. Has Christianity become so much about feeling good that we should not take time to acknowledge our failures and our faults as a collective people?
May God forgive us.
GOOD-FRIDAY, 1613, RIDING WESTWARD.
by John Donne
LET man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is ;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey ;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die ;
What a death were it then to see God die ?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul's, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn ?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us ?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them ; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.
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