Good Friday

When the Good Friday service begins, the cross is still shrouded and the alter is still stripped. The clergy and lay-readers are still dressed in black.

The service itself, which centered heavily upon the choir, who sang beautifully both American folk songs and pieces from Bach's B Minor mass, including a beautiful aria sung by up-and-coming opera singer Sandra Peters, was moving and sad, beautiful and touching. Interspersed with the choir music, David gave a series of reflections on Jesus' death.

What liturgical Christians need to remember, said David, is that it is not enough to recite the creed. You need a personal relationship with Christ. Do you want to see Jesus? Do you want to look in his face? It is not an easy face to look upon, this time of year. It is a face of suffering and pain. But what we need, if we want to be followers of Christ, is not an explanation, not a theory, not a theology. We need to be in the garden with Christ. We need to walk with him to the cross. And that is what the liturgy provides for us. Through the litugy we are there. We pray with Jesus in the garden, and like his disciples we fall asleep. We abandon him and we deny him, but we are still welcome at the foot of the cross. We witness his suffering and we mourn with the disciples. And we walk with Joseph of Aramethia to the new tomb, and we help to lay Jesus down.

And we wait.