Tetelestai

So what have I been up to lately? Well, I dragged my sorry self out of bed and went to church this morning. Don’t you find that empathy is the oddest thing? It’s feels for all the world like losing a protective layer of skin. I must have been to a gazillion Good Friday services and although I’m usually moved by them, I’m used to it. This morning, there was a very simple scenario played out during the service: 4 women holding a single length of folded black cloth at shoulder level, walking slowly down the aisle. They stopped halfway and changed the cloth to the other shoulder and walked till they reached the pulpit. And suddenly, I couldn’t stop crying. It was as though that simple cloth had transmuted into a body, and I was filled with such sorrow. It was the uncanniest thing. Anyone who knows me will testify that I’m ordinarily a cold-eyed, hardhearted miscreant, and that’s my friends talking! I am constantly amazed by the Redemption story but I find the crucifixion so distressing that I have to screw up my courage to read it every time I come to it. As for watching ‘The passion of the Christ’ again, fuggedaboutit. Meanwhile, I can sit through endless gory films or watch Jack Bauer lay waste to most of the West coast of States without flinching. There is just something truly terrible about seeing an innocent person suffer for the sake of others….it’s mind-boggling that anyone would volunteer to do so, talk less of God himself doing so.

It’s also amazing that there is so little knowledge in Britain about Easter; it’s all subsumed under an avalanche of Easter eggs and Roast Lamb. When I looked online yesterday, only two of the churches in this area were even holding a service today. Unbelievable, or perhaps sadly, all too believable. The others did promise an ‘eggstravaganza’ for Easter Sunday though. I’m sure that’s exactly why Jesus came to die on the cross… This country is way overdue a revival. In fact, I’m making a declarative utterance right now: this time next year, the churches will be full on Sundays, and the supermarkets empty. You heard it here first. People get ready, there’s a train a-coming. Well, on this most excellent Friday, I wish you all a total absence of sorrow, and a weekend full of joy, celebration, and restoration.

(Image: Salvador Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross)