SLOW DOWN…YOU MOVE TOO FAST

GOOD FRIDAY LENT 2015

Today we read Mark 15:1-41. We’ve come to it—Jesus' Crucifixion. The whole of Lent has been building to this point. We walked with Jesus. Heard his teaching. Read of his miraculous acts. Grimaced at all the disrespectful moments of those who challenged and rejected him. Stood awe struck at the Last Supper and Garden. Now we’ve come to it. Jesus will be tried by Pilate, scourged, and crucified. In Mark’s telling he cries out “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me.”

It is that terrible day we call Good Friday. We know why it is good, but that does not mean we like it. Throughout my life it has always been an odd day. A day that seemed by all that was around me to have slowed down. I grew up when all the shops on Main Street closed from Noon to 3 p.m. Everything slowed down because God was hanging on a Cross. The world is different now. Today in Albany the weather is over 60 degrees…the weatherman said not once, but over and over on the morning show to, “Get outside today and have fun…on Sunday it will be cold again.” For me that is a backwards thought. Today is the day it is cold…the coldness of torture and death…Sunday is the day of warm light pouring forth from the tomb. The warmth today certainly felt good, but today is a day to not merely remember Jesus’ death, but to slow down and enter it…so no long blog today…just some thoughts to encourage you to not rush past the Cross.