Good Friday Long Ago

The year was 1962—58 years ago—I was 19 years old.  The place was the Island of Crete.  The day was Good Friday.  A Greek friend invited me to attend the Orthodox Good Friday service.  The women of the church create the Epitaphios (the tomb of Christ) decorated with fresh flowers which is placed in the front of the church.   In the center of the Epitaphios is an elaborately embroidered cloth with the image of Christ on it.  The icon of Jesus is removed from the cross and wrapped in linen and put in the Epitaph (the tomb).

At the close of the worship service, the Epitaph is carried out of the church and into the streets of the village followed by the faithful worshippers with lighted candles.  The Church bells peal slow, deep funeral tones, the priests chant, incense is burned, and the people sing solemn hymns.  Eventually the procession makes its way to the local cemetery where the women begin to cry and wail for those whom they have lost in death, and a funeral service is conducted for Jesus in the present tense.   

That’s what I remember. The experience took root in my consciousness and has remained there ever since.  The experience made me aware of the power of death. This power of death takes many forms.  It exists everywhere.  It is any power that denigrates our humanity, any power that makes us less than what we are, any power that takes life (our humanity) away from us, including the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic that presently envelops us. 

Contrary to the way many Christians interpret the Bible, the Bible itself concentrates upon events as they happen in this world as it is.  The Bible focuses upon societal realities of every description as they exist in time.  Biblical faith is concerned with this world. Biblical faith is lived out within the human situation as human beings experience it.  And what this faith affirms is that this time and this place and all experience in this world, fallen as it is, is the subject of God’s concern and incessant love and action—“For I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt…I have heard their cries…I have taken heed of their sufferings (Exodus 3:7).”  In that cemetery long ago, I sensed God’s presence.  I felt God heard the chanting of the priests, the solemn hymns of the people, the pealing of the Church bells, the crying of the women and even smelled the burning incense.  I sensed God felt the sorrow they expressed in their mourning.  It seemed to me that I  heard God crying with them, expressing his own deep sorrow for the death of their beloved and his own.  Easter happened that night because God was there.  Easter happens because God is here, and there, and everywhere, suffering in, and at the same time transfiguring and redeeming what is.