Good Friday is a very special day, so special that I can see no doodle on the Google homepage to commemorate the most important few days of the Christan calendar.
It can only be a matter of time before Caesar abolishes the Easter holiday for the workers with a fixed date celebration of International Dwarves Day.
To Caesar and those who love him, the Cross of Christ is as offensive as ever. Jesus is redeeming us from slavery - not exactly what Caesar wants. Jesus is paying for our sin - Caesar does not want that. Caesar wants us to keep paying for our sin that we may keep obeying him. Caesar does not want us to even think about sin, for therein lies the seed of liberation.
Caesar only wants us to obey the regulations and to pay our taxes. If you've got a problem, go and see a psychologist.
Power seems to expand year by year, but Jesus does not get down from the Cross. He continues to offend the world.
Power talks to us of our rights, not our duties, it talks to us of taking more rather than giving more, it talks to us about our Selves, and not about God, it prefers psychology to theology, it seeks not to love the Other, but to blame the Other.
For it is a blameless society that hates and scapegoats those who do not conform. The blameless ones herd together in their hate. What does Good Friday mean to a blameless person, a person who reckons up his virtue and compares himself favourably to his fellow? It means nothing at all.
But should we take that small first step and take ownership of our sin? Should we say, 'my sin is my own'? Should we say 'I am sinner'?
Now that would be really brave, really really brave, braver than coming out as Gay. I mean, when you stop sneering, hating and condemning others you'll having nothing to talk to your old friends about anymore. Caesar will frown upon you. Admit your sin and you are stepping outside of slave society, outside of a mob glued together by communal hate and gluttony.
Admit that you are a sinner, and know that only Jesus' love can save you. For Jesus is the Son of God, he is Love made man. Only his perfect love can save you, and when you know him as your Lord and Saviour you too can eat of his body and his blood, his sacrificial love and his unconditional love.
And though you will never be as perfect as He, yet you will be pointing upwards, and not downwards, and in some small way, at least, you will be free.
Caesar thought that he could destroy the Kingdom of Heaven by crucifying Christ but he was wrong.
No wonder the Cross is so offensive.
Happy Easter!
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