The Stark choice of Good Friday

Hi guys…We’re just a few days shy of Good Friday and I’ve been hanging out to share the piece below which I’ve lifted from the best ever set of meditations for Lent that I’ve ever, ever read. In our Sydney Parish we bought enough of these little hard-back books from Koorong to give every family unit connected with us a free copy so we could go the journey together. Riches and nourishment aplenty for the soul and spirit. (IT’S CALLED ‘RELIVING THE PASSION’ BY WALTER WANGERIN. (PUBLISHED BY ZONDERVAN) Wangerin is a prince among Jesus Christ obsessed storytellers. He has a way of throwing graceful holy darts into the heart of his reader.

So try the following excerpt…It’s based on the choice a desperate and frustrated Pilate offers the troubling crowd surging restlessly before him…

THE STARK CHOICE OF GOOD FRIDAY

Behold the people! Though they think themselves the force of the morning, in charge of things (by virtue of their numbers and their noise), they are in fact being put to a test which shall reveal the truth between their words, the reality beneath their self-assumption and all their pretense.

Behold the nature of the breed!

A crowd has gathered at the Praetorium, a rabble, an obstreperous delegation of Judeans whose presence complicates Pilate’s inclination to release Jesus. These crowds are volatile. Instead of a simple release, then, a choice is offered the people. Let the people feel in charge: let the people decide. The Governor will, according to a traditional Passover amnesty, free one prisoner. Which will it be-

Jesus of Nazareth? – whom they have falsely accused of treason against the empire?

Or Barabbas? – treasonous in fact, one who committed murder for the cause?

If they choose the latter, their loyalties to the empire ( which Jesus is supposed to have offended) are revealed a vile sham, and these are no more than temporizing hypocrites, pretending any virtue to satisfy a private end.

But the Governor will release only one prisoner. Which will it be?

Jesus – who is the Son of the Father, who is the Kingdom of God come near unto them?

Or Barabbas – whose name means “the son of a (human) father,“ flesh itself, the fleshly pretensions to god-like, personal power in the kingdoms of the world?

This precisely, is the timeless choice of humankind.

If they choose the latter, they choose humanity over divinity. They choose one who will harm them over one who will heal them.

If they choose Barabbas, they choose the popular revolutionary hero, the swashbuckler, the pirate, merry Robin Hood, the blood lusty rake, the law-flout, violence glorified, appetites satisfied, James Bond, Billy Jack. Clint Eastwood, Rambo, the celebrated predator, the one who “turns them on,” over one who asks them “to deny themselves and die.” They choose (voluntarily!) entertainment over worship, self-satisfaction over sacrificial love, getting things over giving things, being served over serving, “feeling good about myself” and having it all and gaining the whole world and rubbing elbows with the rich rather than rubbing the wounds of the poor-

The choice is before them. And they think the choice is external, this man or that man. In fact the choice is terribly internal: this nature or that one, good folks or people essentially selfish and evil. It’s an accurate test of their character. How people choose is who they are.

Behold a people in desperate need of forgiveness.


BE BLESSED, AND BLESS

FRED