TagEaster

Why I Need Good Friday

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Good Friday is the painful vision of humanity at our very worst. I am horrified by what I see there. A good man extinguished. A man who devoted his life to doing good, to healing the sick, welcoming the outcast, forgiving those broken by their guilt, honouring the shamed, standing with the poor and challenging those who kept them poor. His goodness was met by the most cynical abuse of power;...

The Greatest Easter Sermon Ever

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It’s Friday. Jesus is arrested in the garden where He was praying. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. The disciples are hiding and Peter’s denying that he knows the Lord. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is standing before the high priest of Israel, silent as a lamb before the slaughter. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is beaten, mocked, and spit upon. But Sunday’s coming. It’s...

Why Do We Call it Good Friday?

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It has always struck me as strange that we refer to the day of Jesus’ death as Good Friday.  Shouldn’t it be “Bad Friday” or “Evil Friday”, or some similar term? Was this not a day when evil was at its worst, unleashing its hatred and fury on One who had done nothing but love extravagantly? It’s on this day I want to immerse myself in Auden’s funeral poem, with it’s final stanza The stars are not...

Palm Sunday. Does An Ancient Prophet Riding a Donkey Have Anything To Say To My World?

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Today is Palm Sunday. It’s the day we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, greeted by crowds waving palm fronds and acclaim him the descendent of David, come to reclaim his throne. I write while sitting in an airplane, 35,000 feet above the ground, hurtling through the air at hundreds of kilometres an hour. What relevance can this story of an ancient prophet on a donkey...

An Arc in the Sand. Reflecting on Easter Traditions #1

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If there is a universal symbol of Christianity today it is undoubtedly the cross. But in the first three hundred years of the church it was the fish. The fish symbol was particularly significant during outbreaks of persecution. Because it had been used by pagans it aroused little suspicion. Christians would mark the symbol on meeting places to indicate their presence and on tombs to mark the...

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