Philadelphians went for Good Friday observances big time when we first moved there in 1976. Following long established tradition, employers large and small throughout “the tri-state area” gave folks of all persuasions the afternoon of Good Friday off so they might attend a service at their church. Good Friday services were full. Choirs sang. Processions processed. Preachers preached.
Alas, chinks in the tradition started appearing shortly thereafter. One after the other, employees were required to bring proof of their attendance of a Good Friday service. It began to be more and more difficult for employees to get off work Good Friday afternoon. By 1999, Attendance at Good Friday services dwindled to nearly nothing and most churches stopped holding them all together.
Today, all across the country, many churches struggle to hold a Good Friday observance without a single person in the church building. Why?
Because it has been an important service for hundreds of years.
Because there is an important story to be told - somehow.
Because we just feel we should.
Alas, the story that gets remembered and gets told on this day is lengthy and detailed, so that by the time we get to the end we tend to overlook the point of the story and thereby miss, and misunderstand, it’s point and why it was so significant to the very earliest Christians.
All four Gospels contain a version of the same story. When confronted with different accounts of the same story, we believers seem to have a need to treat each as incomplete and so we attempt to combine the separate elements to try to make different stories one story.
Tradition has it there are 12 stages of this story - 12 Stages of the Cross.
A traditional Good Friday Service consists of some sort of meditation on each of these 12 stages. Most often by the time we get to the end of the story - the climax, if you will - most of us are so thankful to have completed the exercise that the climax, the point, is missed.
Interestingly, (and of particular significance to me) all four Gospels are clear and explicit about the climax and point and purpose of remembering and retelling of the story.
After relaying these profound stories of Jesus encounters on his way to and while he is hanging on the cross, all four Gospels relay what happens when Jesus finally gives up the ghost. (I mean, that’s what happens. isn’t it?) Finally, Jesus lets out his last gasp. All of his breath, all of God’s life-force, the very breath of God according to the Creation story, leaves his body. His body hangs life-less.
And as that happens, the curtain in the temple is torn in two! The Temple Curtain, the curtain that separates “The Holy of Holies” (the residence of The Lord Almighty) from the faith adherents IS TORN IN TWO from the top to the bottom. This profoundly states that God is no longer there! God escapes the box. God can no longer be kept away from the people.
The word is clear for all to hear.
God is no longer in the house.
God is no longer in this dead man on the cross.
So, what does this story have to do about the price of beans?
This story was to have profound affect on how worship was to be done and what one was to believe.
The story tells us that if we are not to find the Holy in the dead man on the cross;
and if we are not find the Holy in the Temple;
how can we to experience the Holy?
Where do we go and what are to do to experience the Holy?
And, we told very clearly, “Go back to where you came from. Go home. Look around you. Value the lives of others. Meet their needs. Help them out. Give of yourself. It is when you do these things that you meet the Holy.”
Fred Rogers’ mother told him to “Look for the helpers.” She got the message.
To me, this is the message of Good Friday. And how I observe it.
Thanks for reading.
Clyde Griffith
Tulsa, Oklahoma
April 10, 2020
