Good Friday. Good for business; the streets full of people willing themselves against the piercing winter wind to take advantage of this extra day for spending money. Yet, a sprinkling among the throng is enough to fill the churches of the city centre. There are those who seek, this day, to pray.
The heart of worship on this day is the death of a man—
though death comes to thousands every day.
It was a brutal death—
though brutality is common to human passing.
He was an innocent man—
and death comes seldom enough to those who are deserving.
I sat in the cathedral quire, awaiting the start of the service. A child behind me asked endless questions of her mother; three blue-rinse ladies in front of me chatted over whatever they had to chat; a frail and elderly man next to me spoke of having come to this cathedral many times. We sat amongst the stalls, the paraphernalia of 700 years of worship about us, the weight of innocent blood the theme of our gathering. And we chatted as though this was a common-place; as though violent death is a casual subject.
Perhaps, just so casually, the crowds chatted on that Friday.
We walk the way of the cross. It matters not that this is not Jerusalem, where fellow-worshippers walked that way today. The well-trodden path of the Stations is little closer to the actual there than here. The story is the same. From arrest in the Garden, to mockery of judgement before Pilate. A cross is carried before us, and we touch it, even kiss it, in devotion to the convicted prisoner. We stand before the cross on Golgotha. We cannot grasp why this death matters so much. But we know we are drawn up in the reality of this death.
There is no blood here, only wine. No torn flesh, only bread.
We are drawn up into this reality. Drawn up with this unpresupposing and threatless cross are the brutal and violent deaths of the innocents of our world. Iraq, Congo, Sudan, Columbia, the Holy Land. And tragic and unexplainable deaths, like that of our Chief Superintendent of Police, whose book of remembrance stands in the side-chapel. Many remember him well, none understand why. Another man dies; there is no clear reason. His, too, is drawn up in this day.
‘Having loved his own who are in the world, he loved them to the end.’ So says the Gospel of John. The love of a Father for his Son is played out in full in this sad death. The love of a Son for his world is sealed in the only way this world seems to imagine—by killing. He loved to the end.
But, this is not a termination. Not the snuffing out of hope. It is the goal of love, the purpose of love. In this death the violence and brutality of ‘sinful men’ is laid bare, and their power sucked out. Derided. Impotent. Visionless. Empty.
The mystery of this death lies in this power. The Church wields great power, and controls great riches; but diminishing power, and questionable wealth. Her power, too, is empty. Apart from the particular and painful reality of the death of one man; the brutal, violent, and unjust death of a son of God.
The mystery of this death lies in powerlessness. This paradox lies at the heart of story of Jesus. Justice comes through injustice; victory comes through defeat; life comes through death. No other way that either human society or the Church attempts can achieve a thing. Only when a grain of seed falls into the ground is there resurrection.
Do not mourn today. Look to the sign of Lazarus.
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