All Saints Episcopal Church, Hilton Head Island, SC
April 1, 2007
A person in a parish where I served as an assistant commented
about Good Friday and Easter. This was a woman in the parish who had the ability
and stature to say just about anything she wanted to say. Over the years she had
spoken her mind about prayer book revision, passing the peace, praying before
worship, kneeling at the "appropriate" time during worship, and just about
anything to do with faith, worship, and the church. She really didn't care if
she was politically "incorrect" or if she ruffled some major feathers at St.
John's Glyndon in Maryland.
On this particular occasion her remarks were heard following the Maundy Thursday
evening service. As we were leaving, she said loudly enough for many to hear
that it was her opinion that the following day the clergy should have tickets to
hand out to all who observe Good Friday and that these tickets were to be
redeemed on Easter. Only those with tickets indicating they had observed the
death of Jesus on the Cross would be allowed to celebrate the resurrection of
Jesus on Easter Day.
She was outrageous ... in fact, she was always outrageous. The thought of
tickets outraged my own understanding of Good Friday and Easter. Most people in
the parish ignored her and her remarks, knowing that they were meant to unsettle
and cause a stir. Yet over the years I have mellowed about this woman and her
outrageous remarks about tickets, Good Friday, and Easter. I have come to throw
away the outrageousness in her remarks and look at the correlation and
relationship between the events surrounding Jesus on the Friday we call "Good"
and the empty tomb experience on Easter morning. In a real sense we cannot
celebrate Easter without going to the depths of Golgotha.
These are realities that interact with one another. There is no resurrection
without the Cross, and the Cross has no redemptive power for us without the
resurrection. Those events in the life of Jesus, critical to our faith and
lives, are really connected as one sweeping event of salvational history for the
world and Christians in particular.
In a real sense we cannot come to the empty tomb without first being present at
the Cross. Our lives depend on both. The Cross is as real today as it was on the
first Friday called by Christians "Good Friday." If we want to fully take in the
glory, mystery, and celebration of Easter, it is true we must also experience
the depth of Jesus' passion and his humiliation on the ugly cross.
We don't need tickets to be given out on Good Friday only to be redeemed three
days later. Yet I wonder if the outrageous woman at St. John's might have been
correct theologically. The number of people attending Good Friday services never
seems to equal the crowd on Easter morning. We all like happy endings, yet our
faith demands that we die before we are resurrected.
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