Today Anglicans join Christians around the world in remembering the death of Jesus. As Holy Week draws to a close with the Great Vigil tomorrow and as the mystery of resurrection Sunday is celebrated we start anew the annual cycle of worship that is the framework through which we mark the Christian seasons.
The importance for me of Good Friday is that it serves as remembrance that we, all of us, throughout all of the ages of humankind, have taken part in crucifying Jesus. Every time we have turned away from hope, turned away from neighbour, turned away from those we deem to be other, we have again taken up the hammer and driven in the nails. Remembering this, and through remembering doing some small penance offers the hope of redemption, of change.
Easter itself is not to me a promise of eternal life in the kingdom of God, nor is it a promise of reward if I believe, nor is it a memorial that Jesus came back to life and walked from his tomb and did recorded things within his community.
Easter is captured so sublimely in the lyric of Jim Manley that concludes his hymn, The First Gleam of Christmas:
The light that first shone forth from God, like star-fire on the Earth
became a baby long ago, reborn with each new birth.
Peace in the heart, the home, the world, it dims but never dies
and the first faint gleam of Christmas still is wonder to our eyes.
And the first gleam of Christmas, the first hint of cheer,
lights the days of winter in the dawning of the year.
God Bless
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