So what is Good about Good Friday?

In 40 years time this is the first Good Friday I have not gone to church. What a statement to make as a Pastor.

I am a retired Pastor now and this is my first year to not carry the weight of having to do a church service on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. I am no longer responsible to “make it happen” and conduct the important tradition of the Christian Church – remembering our Lord’s Death and Resurrection – a show piece of the local church. Traditionally it has been a time that everyone comes to church… a high point in the year.

For some reason our church is almost all away this weekend – so there is no service. A poll was taken and it was found that few would be there. I am not critical of the decision at all.

For years I have felt that the declining interest and the push to make it happen by myself and my paid assistants has been the main reason that we have kept it alive. Last year there was a dwindling number that sprinkled the pews of the large sanctuary. This year people were more honest and simple stated that, “Yes we will be away…”

Maybe guilt about not having a service will no longer be the driving force that has kept it happening by a faithful few,

For years our churches have made the Easter Weekend a great collecting of folk from the community. As I boy I remember that it was the weekend that we all got our new clothing for church attendance and other important dates to come. Women had new hats and dresses. Men shined shoes more often and the boys got new trousers. Attendance at church swelled and the seats were full… almost.

There was special bread and buns with many kinds of foods to eat – an early Christmas celebration or a second Christmas celebration after the winter is almost over.

Then came Easter Eggs and later the Bunny that delivered the eggs… with many of us starting to believe that the Bunny Lays the eggs. Farm kids were smarter than that – they knew that what came out of a Bunny was not eggs…but rather chocolate Glossette Raisins that city kids could be fooled into trying.

Society changed from the days of my boyhood. People are much busier and more people have to work. It is very unusual to find a stay at home mom and a family with one person only working. When a good weekend comes along that has some holidays sprinkled around it – giving us a four day stretch of away from toil… we take what we can get.

If I was completely honest with you – I found it difficult to keep the church service going Good Friday and Easter Sunday – when everyone else left on a holiday. That constant “having to be there for the show” was heavy at times. My Church Board members were all away… my Assistant Pastors wished they were and the congregation that had come “missed their friends”.

Now it should be said here that we could have had a larger crowd if we would have hired a great Southern Gospel Group to light up our church. A few years back we had checked out the possibilities to hire some Big Guns for this special weekend. The cost for the Christian Circus kind of weekend was astounding… somewhere over $10,000 for a Good Group… and maybe $2000 for a Ho Hum group.

We checked out the possible attendance of own people – and they were not going to be there either. We would have to do the Rootin Tootin advertisement for the weekend and convince the other Church Attenders in the City to leave their churches and come to ours, give in a Love Offering to pay the debt that we had incurred with the Good Group… and then face the other ministers the next months with small amount of guilt for stealing their folk away…

But if we were lucky the people we stole from other churches would stay in our church and not return back to their churches – because we are better…

Come to think of it – maybe that is why our Easter Weekend services were dropping over the past few years… the “Christian Circus” was happening at the other Bigger Better More Beautiful People Congregations in the City – that is BBMBPC in the City.

What I have also discovered in these last few years – there are more people on the outside of the church having fun than on the inside. But it is kind of a bummer today – even the Malls and Grocery Stores are closed for this Holiday… but I doubt that they know why.

So what is Good about Good Friday?
If you have followed my rambling and double meaning statements above… you will definitely wonder about me as a minister. I am sure.

You see the church has for a long time forgotten what Good Friday is all about. My opinion anyway… for what it is worth. Some Pastors for that matter may have lost that depth of the meaning with all that they have to do on special weekends like this… they just lead and keep the show going.

Today instead of wondering if the people that should have the communion ready to go – would really be there to do the job or not – I didn’t worry or wonder any more. Wondering if we had picked the right words and songs to sing is no longer a stressor. Feeling that gut wrenching feeling… when you know that half your own people are at the BBMBPC – is not nagging at my mind and gut. Wondering if they would come back from the BBMBPC and attend our church again – is a wisp of a memory…

This morning early when I woke up I remembered that Last Day that Jesus was alive. He had been beaten and his body ripped until it was not recognizable… Mel Gibson helped me with that image.

Next the soldiers paraded him to a miserable trial and then had him carry his own cross to a miserable hill – where they murdered him under a very dark sky.

Then they let his friends bury his body in a quiet tomb.

You know the rest of the account I am sure. On the Third Day he busted out of the entombment – Resurrected we say in the church… to live again.

Come to think of it… today is Good… it is Good Friday – when one of the most horrible things happened to the best man that ever lived… so that I might pause someday and remember what he did.

Today I am doing that without all the other professional, religious stuff… and it feels so good!

Finally…
24Now Murray (called Pastor), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Murray was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Murray, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28Murray said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
29Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:24 – 30)

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/

Sources:
The Gospel of John – Chapter 19
The Gospel of John – Chapter 20