04152022 – Good Friday
So, the attempt is to do “something a little bit different tonight.” Something unusual. Something not done before.
A Tenebrae liturgy, means a liturgy of “darkness and shadows.” The shadows being a must. But obviously, you will need some light to sing and to participate.
My request was for 15 candles to be lighted around the sanctuary. Those fifteen candles will be extinguished, as others see fit. Nothing is being orchestrated. It will just happen. Or, maybe it wont!
Prayerfully, shadows will emerge and change and alter our worship space.
I think “the best effect” would be to start out in COMPLETE darkness – using only the existing light.
Add candle light, and then, extinguish the candles…one by one. The fifteen candles are for EACH of the twelve disciples and the small number of women who gathered around the foot cross. We’ll have to see how this goes…
WORLDWIDE Jesus is a revered as a religious figure, but he was also “A RADICAL” in his own right, whose “life and teachings,” changed the course of human history.
Too often today radicalism is equated with “terrorism,” “extremism” and other “violent acts of resistance.”
Yet RADICALISM, the kind embodied by such “revolutionary figures” as Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi, involves “speaking THE truth” to the powers that be, through PEACEFUL, NONVIOLENT means.
Separated by time and space, Jesus, King, and Gandhi, were viewed as “DANGEROUS by their respective governments” because they challenged “the OPPRESSIVE status quo of their day.”
Jesus, “IN PARTICULAR,” undermined the political and religious establishment of his day THROUGH his teachings.
When Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers,” exhorting his followers to turn the other cheek and to give freely, and to go the extra mile…you could have heard a pin drop.
His gruesome torture and his crucifixion makes clear, there is always a price to pay for “standing up to one’s oppressors.”
In Jesus’ time, religious leaders and self-proclaimed prophets were not summarily arrested and executed. Nor were NONVIOLENT protesters.
The high priests and Roman governors in Jerusalem would ALLOW a protest, particularly a SMALL-SCALE ONE, to run its course.
Unfortunately, for Jesus, the crowds only swelled…and swelled, and swelled.
Government authorities were ALWAYS quick to DISPOSE of “leaders and movements” that even APPEARED TO THREATEN the Roman Empire.
The charges leveled against Jesus that he was a THREAT to the STABILITY of the nation, opposed PAYING Roman TAXES and claimed to be a KING or Messiah of Israel (the gravest charge, for which he was ultimately crucified, as inscribed on the cross: “The King of the Jews”) — were all POLITICAL, not religious charges at all.
To the Romans, ANY ONE OF THESE charges was enough TO MERIT death by crucifixion.
Crucifixion itself, usually reserved for SLAVES, NON-ROMANS, RADICALS, REVOLUTIONARIES and the WORST CRIMINALS, was not only “a common method for execution by Romans” but was also “THE” MOST FEARED.
It is telling that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who alone had the AUTHORITY to execute Jesus, FOCUSED on his political identity: “Are you the KING of the Jews?”
Jesus didnot DENY the allegation. Thus leading to his death. He answered: “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
Jesus told Pilate — the one person who held his life in his hands – DEAL WITH IT! The fact that Jesus was killed for claiming to be “king” of the Jews was not some kind of an “afterthought pinned on the cross above his head.
The Roman soldiers commissioned to PREPARE him for execution knew this was the ONE and ONLY issue.
That is why they gave him “the parody of coronation,” clothing him in a royal purple robe with a mock crown and holy scepter.
Then, they lowered, degraded, humiliated, and demeaned, themselves and cried out, “Hail, king of the Jews!” After that, they beat Jesus senseless.
In a purely historical context, Jesus’ crucifixion sent a chilling warning to all those who would CHALLENGE the powers that be.
He got what he deserved. He received, what he asked for. YOU could be NEXT.
Within a religious context, Jesus’ death was a sacrificial act of atonement for the sins of the world. And it has been noted that while he was hanging there and dying, the sacrificial lambs were being slaughtered for the feast of Passover.
The story continues…