Today is Good Friday. What does that mean to you? I’m not really sure what it means to me now that I’m an adult. I grew up Christian and went to church almost every week until I left home at eighteen. Then my visits to church became more sporadic, and recently only for the christenings of my three children.
But what does Good Friday mean? Why is it something that is celebrated? (most likely at the wrong time of year, but unrelated so back to the topic)
To most Christians and those who have grown up in a Judeo-Christian culture, Good Friday commemorates the day that Jesus died by crucifixion. We learn that he died for our sins so that we can live forever if we believe in him.
Today I’m struck but the idea of looking past the story I grew up hearing, the gift and blessing we are told that comes with it, and into the history of the event itself. I’m not arguing if it happened or not- that isn’t what I have been thinking about. I don’t really know what others feel about this, and I’m not trying to pick a fight (although I realize this is a sensitive subject for many.)
The part that I am focused on today, while the weather is cold and overcast, is how this could have happened in the first place.
Crucifixion was a terrible, terrible thing, and it happened to many throughout the history of the Greco-Roman world. The man we call Jesus died because no one would or could save him. At the end, he died a horrible death reserved for the worst criminals, one of the worst things that humans have come up with to kill other humans in a list of awful deaths.
What must have the man behind the story felt? What must those who loved him gone through? It wasn’t just an execution, it was a humiliation. Because the establishment that he was raised in didn’t like the crazy-talk he’d been spouting. He was preaching love thy neighbour and equality in a time when it wasn’t only heresy, but could get you killed.
Over two thousand years later we remember this event as a sign that our God died for us. But I also remember the man behind the event and the holiday. Someone who died for what they believe in. Someone who cared so much about those around him that he was willing to die for them, even if he didn’t know them.
I look at the world around me and wonder if things have changed much. Will we be seeing another individual take the same stand and die for the same thing? If we read the news or watch it on TV, history has given us so many examples of people who have stood in the face of evil in a similar manner. Many have been long since forgotten, others have names we vaguely remember. Complex people with flaws who stood up and said this isn’t right, stop it.
What is the measure of a man? Or woman? Or child? What causes us to stand up and say enough, this is wrong? Will I be a person that can stand up to injustice when the moment comes by? I’d like to think I would. And I’d like to think those I love, that my children I am hopefully teaching to be decent humans would also stand up. But until we are in the moment we never really know what we would do. Until we have to make a choice, it’s easy to say what you would choose.
So on Good Friday this year, I think of the man behind the story and I celebrate his choice to stand up for what he believed. I hope that if I am ever forced to choose between what’s right and what’s not that I will have a fraction of the strength that this Man had.
Happy Easter to everyone. Go out and love thy neighbour, and don’t eat too much chocolate 🙂