Three Hours at the Cross, Yorkminster

All three of my regular readers will know by now that Good Friday is my favourite holy day. This year I attended Three Hours at the Cross in Yorkminster. The service split Chapter 15 of The Book of Mark into six sections, and six clergy preached on the section s/he read. After each sermon, an organ improvisation was played followed by mediative silence, after which the preacher offered a prayer, and we sung a hymn accompanied by the organ.

Having heard the gospels so many times over the decades, sometimes my ears no longer hear what is there. The Very Reverend Doctor Vivienne Faull preached on the soldiers mocking Jesus (Mark15:16-20), and she opened my mind to how this scene might speak to our time. My ears do hear news of war much too frequently, but on this Good Friday, Faull instead brought me stories told by individual soldiers.

One was from a soldier returning home to loving family and friends. Yet, he still felt alone trying to cope with the nightmare of war, separated from the only human beings who truly understood the experience he had suffered through. Another was by a soldier who after killing a deadly sniper was overcome with remorse, cried out for forgiveness, and vomited all over himself, not exactly the image of warfare shown in cinema. After hearing these and other stories, we reconsidered the Mark's scene from the Roman soldier's point of view: What parts of the empire were they from? How long had they been away from their loved ones? What had they witnessed that had perhaps challenged their perception of their role in humanity? Had any of them lost comrades-in-arms in the Judean revolts going on at the time? I came away struck by the contrast between the disconnected one-dimensional images that we project onto our soldiers and the individuals we trap behind these images of false bravado. I feel that Faull fostered an attitude of compassion toward our returning soldier's' plights and through the conduit of Mark 15:16-20 made that compassion a holy pursuit.

Then Reverend Canon Michael Smith preached the crucifixion (Mark 15:21-23). If Faull pried open my deaf ears, Smith fired a cannon. He used a powerful analogy that suggested we were crucifying God again and again whenever we place our small-minded limitations on God through doctrine, dogma, and especially when we used religion to reinforce our own bigotry and self-serving political aims.

My translation of Smith's reflection is that Christianity is meant to be a transformative and disruptive experience. Smith reminded me that no one, not me, not Smith, not the Archbishop, not the Pope, not the Bible can contain the infinite vastness of God and that it is a constant effort just to remember that. I ache to transcend the boundaries of my own limitations so that I can see all people in a way that I can only hope to imagine that God sees us. I fail every day, but Smith's reflection encourages me to try again tomorrow.

The image of a suffering deity is a powerful one, and much needed. Some of the preachers could not resist moving ahead to the victory of Easter in their sermons. It is no surprise because our culture is obsessed with victory and success. But for me, this one day is an opportunity to contemplate what we will do when in those inevitable times in our lives when victory is not possible. For me, this is the point of religious adherence. Art no doubt can shine a light here too, but not everyone lives with the privilege of ready access to art. And even when we do, we tend to self indulge rather than examine our own limitations.

Good Friday reminds me that there are harder things than the ones I am facing. It reminds me I live an abundant and luxurious life. It reminds me that when I soften my heart to the suffering of others, I am presented with the beautiful possibility of easing the burden of another like Simon of Cyrene did (Mark15:21), rather of just waiting for someone else to do relieve the burden (Mark15:36) or profiting from the burden (Mark15:24).

Photo Credit:

Arka Pana Crucifix