And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
At 3:00pm this afternoon (New Testament term = about the 9th hour) a whole bunch of football matches kicked off. Lacking a nearby football match just wait a couple of hours and the doors opened at the German Bier Festival.
Could anything be less appropriate for Good Friday?
Well, here's the strange thing. Yes.
Depending on how one views such things there is a case to be made that religious services and prayer meetings (our Church had one) whilst laudable in a way are less reminiscent of the first Good Friday than the atmosphere of a game or beer festival.
I suppose that in this land what we are really seeing is the cultural dismembering of a nation's Christian heritage. This is a trending reality that we may regret. But this is not at all the same thing as a disaster.
Salvation, and the faith that follows Jesus Christ, emerged from the worldly raucous atmosphere outside the Holy City at Golgotha. We have certainly lost something, and we are likely to lose more, but we have not lost our true story or our true Saviour; we have not lost Good Friday!
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