Good Friday

Good Friday has always been a special day for me. For as long as I can remember.

I recall as a child going to worship. Friday seemed an odd sort of day to be 'going to church'. Quite often it was a special lunchtime service which was held in St George's Tron. In Glasgow, where my Dad worked.

It seemed that the whole world sort of stopped.

This man who died that dreadful death had somehow made the whole world stop and think again.

I don't have any lasting memories of what was said at any of these services. I just recall our being there and it seeming quite appropriate. Easter wasn't Easter if it didn't start like this.

Today I've been largely alone.

In part that's been necessity.

There was so much going on in the early part of the week - and so much still to come, with the service tonight and a service of thanksgiving tomorrow as well, before the Easter Sunday services themselves - that there was much that I had to do in terms of basic preparation.

I've sometimes had to speak right off the cuff. Without a hint of any preparation. So I know that it can be done. God's Spirit enables me wonderfully then, I know.

But that's more the exception than anything resembling a rule. Feeding a people with what is the 'bread of life' - that takes time and preparation. I think even Jesus found that.

I know he could simply stand up on the spur of any moment and deliver truth in ways that were quite riveting.

But I know he also had time apart. And without that time, I doubt even he would have known the sort of fluency he had. The thing's not magic, after all. Miracle, yes, but magic, definitely no.

I need that time apart. The time to simply be with God and listen for his voice. The time to sort of figure out with him not just the what of all he wants to say, but also, too, the how.

Sunday morning coming is a special one. Easter Sunday. A family service. And a service at which the couple I've been meeting now for just about a year will be professing faith. Along with the 'girl' who cleans our halls so brilliantly.

I want it to be special for them all. A day that they'll remember as a highlight in their lives.

And that takes time and toil.

So today, as I say, I've been largely on my own. Working at these services of worship we'll be holding here. And preparing for the funeral tomorrow.

It's been good to remember, with no one around, how Jesus himself was that Friday so very alone.

I know there were the crowds who'd come to watch these wretched crucifixions with a morbid sort of interest and mind. I know there were the criminals between whom he was crucified. I know there were his followers and family, lurking in the shadows and the background of it all.

But the man was alone when he died. More alone than I think I can ever possibly know. Abandoned and forsaken by the Father whom he loved. And left, alone, to die.

I doubt I'll ever really comprehend how dreadful that aloneness actually was. I'm just aware that Jesus was alone.

So it's been good in a way (in the way that Good Friday's 'good', I suppose) to have largely myself been alone. And felt again the pain of that aloneness in the death that Jesus died.

For somehow we who follow him must also walk this way. God's resurrecting power is released alone through living that is somehow sort of 'crucified' itself.

For the power of God to come down on us here - as I long that it should - there is, and there must be, a cost. It isn't ever magic.

And I long that there should be such evident power, the blessing of God from on high, as we gather tomorrow to worship the Lord and give thanks for this man who has died.

I long that there should be such evident power when we gather again on the Sunday of Sundays and celebrate Easter again. The more so when there's the thrill of seeing these three fine folk stand up and honour Christ.

I want it to be special for them all. And it just doesn't happen at the click of a finger or two.

Sundays need their Fridays. Resurrecting power is related to the crucified demeanour of our lives. Life requires death, in a strange sort of way.

So tonight there was the service here as well to mark the death of Jesus and to recognise the life that flows from that.

It's always a special occasion. Solemn without being too sad. One of those times when people from the different congregations all converge. It's good to be one, remembering him like that.

Our being brought into a family. No longer being alone.