Good Friday Message

It's Good Friday. It should a time for reflection for all of us. Reflection of our Saviour, even Jesus Christ. This is the day that matters for each and every one of us. So as we celebrate Easter with family, friends, loved ones... I wish to share this with you. It's the story of Easter as told by Glenn Beck, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and set to the music of Pink Floyd.

Before you turn your nose up at the thought, as I did the first time someone told me about it, give it a listen. It's really well done. If nothing else, it might help with that reflection I mentioned earlier... and I couldn't have told it better myself.

so click here

and then click "continued..." to read along, and I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

Today...

Today we're going on a journey.

They say that time itself does not exist as we know it... as we understand it. It only really exists as something called "space time." It's really only a point on a giant map. Something that we can use to find out where we are, or where we've been... or where we're going.

So let's unfold space time and trace our way back... first just a few years.

Now back even farther.

Back farther still... even before Marconi, when the air was silent. Back past the signing the Declaration of Independence, past the age of enlightenment, before Martin Luther hung his protest on the church doors, before Columbus rediscovered the fact that the world was round. We go past Newton, Galileo, the dark ages, the crusades, back to a time before books, when most of the world couldn't read nor write, when history was oral.

We leave this world now where we can hear and see a lone protestor standing in front of a tank in a country on the other side of the planet, and we can see it live. To a world seemingly simple, yet brutal beyond our understanding, where news was spread from mouth to mouth.

We stop here, at approximately Twenty Nine of the commen era.

We stop at a small walled city in the Middle East. It's around ten o'clock at night, a couple of days before Passover. The meals are being prepared, the night's meals already have been eaten and most in the city are asleep. One man, however, is not.

It's strange... he's younger than I am, He's about thirty. He's awake and alone in a garden. His friends who have been with him for several years are just a few yards away. They slumber underneath a star filled sky. They still don't know that even though they sleep, the world is about to wake.

Eleven of twelve men sleep beside a hill... and one man awake.

He couldn't sleep. He knew. He was in a garden, he was in prayer. He was praying about what he knew was yet to come. Praying so hard that blood actually dripped from his pores in the place of sweat.

Back at the hill, when he returned, he begged his friends to wake up and pray with him. They didn't know how serious his request really was.

He said "Why will you not rise and pray with me?"

He asked this again before returning again to the garden alone. He knelt there on rocky soil, his hands clasped, his head bowed as twilight dew draped his neck. The horizon was still in black. He prayed even harder, for the sky would eventually turn purple, then light blue, and he knew what awaited him.

Back to the hill once more. His friends asleep. He begged "My friends please rise and pray with me. I need you now more than ever." They said they would, but they fell asleep again shortly after he left. The dawn was even closer... and he knew that his time was running out.

Now, over the hill, they march like the flow of lava burning the night's solace. The eleven are surely awake now. They all swear their faith to him, but he knows this isn't really true... they'll weaken and he'll be forsaken. Forsaken by the same men who just swore their undying devotion. The torch lights grow brighter... the hourglass was running low. The clanging of the metal swords and the spears ran over the sound of the march and down each of their spines into a shallow vibration leaving them quivering.

The soldiers approach. He is kissed... and grabbed. Betrayed with a kiss. A kiss and wearing the mask of loyalty. One of the men leaps forward and draws a sword cutting the ear off of one of the soldiers. He raises a hand and he says "No, I will not have this. I will have peace. Take me now, in peace, for this is my purpose. This is my being. This is the reason for my existence."

Now one of them, Peter, strays while his friend is being persecuted for sins he didn't commit. He stands by a fire, denying any relationship he has, as he tries to blend in with the common people. A woman approaches, "Didn't I see you with him?"

Peter says "Surely I don't know him."

"But you're from Galilee!"

For the third time, Peter says "I do not know this man."

Jesus is now dragged back and forth between the two who will determine his fate. They can't really see any crime, yet they still torture and mock him. "You are the king? Well then here is your crown" one says as they give him a crown of thorns and press it into his head.

He stands before the judge who can condemn him for no crime, but it's Passover. He says "You can choose. One will be released, a murderer or the King of the Jews."

Jesus standing silent, his eyes to the ground, is condemned to death.

Jesus now, carries his cross through the stone clad streets, to the place of the skull, the place where he will soon die. His back torn, his head bleeding beneath his thorny crown... the women cry aloud as he passes.

He pauses for a moment, and tells them, "Do not weep for me, rather weep for yourselves."

His mother looks on as huge nails are driven through his hands, and his feet. They raise the cross, and slam it into the ground.

You know, it is at this point where all four writers of the Gospels struggled with the description of the crucifixion, as I did last night. They described it in the only words that I could use... "And they crucified him... and they crucified him."

He now hangs on the cross as the soldiers bid lots for his clothing below. Next to him, two criminals hang. But they're merely tied to the cross. One of them says, "You're the Son of God. Save us now, save all of us." And he did nothing, for he had a purpose. The afternoon passed. His stretched. He wept. He begged for water. They gave him a sponge on a reed filled with vinegar.

In a moment where he showed us he was truly human, he called out. He said "My Father... Why have you forsaken me?"

The sky began to grow dark. It was approaching three o'clock on a Friday afternoon when Jesus spoke once more, and only once. His last words were, "It is finished."

So today, I thank that lone carpenter for dying.

Dying that Friday afternoon... so I may live.