Good Friday meant going to church when I was a little girl. We would get dressed in a special Easter dress and go with my parents to church. My Dad Pastored in a community that’s ministers took turns hosting the Good Friday Service. What a different experience I had as a young girl listening to different Pastor’s preach a Good Friday message.
I remember one particular Good Friday we sat in a cathedral type sanctuary with vaulted ceilings and white walls. The large pipe organ played familiar hymns while we sang about Jesus.
I can’t remember what we sang. I can’t remember the title of the message. What I do remember is the sad music and the depressing heaviness that held the sanctuary in its grip.
No one talked, except the occasional cough. The sanctuary was quiet. The minister’s somber tones washed over me and I remember feeling a deep sadness.
I remembering thinking to myself, “Someone needs to tell these people Jesus isn’t dead anymore.”
Kids see things so simply. I was only nine, but I found a nugget of truth in my Good Friday experience.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with reference and respect for the sacrifice Christ made for us. We should honor His death as an amazing selfless sacrifice.
Just one little thought. Remember those CE Christians…as we used to call them? The Christmas and Easter Christians. Think about them sitting in that sanctuary.
At Christmas they are told the story of Christ’s birth and the celebration of the gift. At Easter, sometimes we focus more on the death than the resurrection and what it means.
CE Christians get two experiences each year. One is the celebration of Christ’s Birth and the other the Sacrifice of His Death, but let’s not miss the joy of the resurrection and what it means.
Christ died for us, but that is not the whole Easter story. He Lives! I’m Forgiven! You’re Forgiven!
Pastor’s preach the message God has given them. We must live the joy of Christ’s resurrection. His forgiveness.
This Good Friday, let your face tell the story of the resurrection. That joy would radiate and CE Christians and others who don’t know Christ would want that joy. Would understand that Easter is more than long faces and the Easter Bunny. Would understand the death of Christ is significant, but the resurrection of Christ is life changing.
What memories do you have of Good Friday?
Thoughts On Plot 
So agree that we need to be joyful Christians rather go around like someone baptized us in vinegar. Jesus had a wonderful sense of humor or He wouldn’t have told us to get the log out of our eye so we could see the speck in our neighbor’s eye. And He went to weddings where you laugh and have a good time. I love that picture of Him with the children, laughing.
Yes, He is risen indeed!
What a great visual image the baptism in vinegar look! He His Risen!!! Thanks, Pat for your thoughts.
We put on The Passion Play each Easter of my high school years. It was written by my wonderful youth leader, in honor of her daughter who had gone on to be with Jesus at a young age. I can’t explain what it meant to all of us, or not in a small space, but it touched and changed many, many lives. The young man portraying Jesus was a handsome and extremely polite football captain with a beautiful, deep singing voice. In that darkened sanctuary, he carried the cross slowly down the center aisle singing, “Jesus walked that lonesome valley; He had to walk it by himself….” (Imagine a slow, low drum beat.) The first year, I was an angel on a stool announcing the good news; my sophomore I was a crippled shepherd boy who was healed in front of everyone, and then for two years was a “reader” in the corner, at a lighted pulpit. (Lovers of words love being readers. Right? It was highly emotional, that I remember.) On a side note: each Sunday our Youth Group meetings ended in the sanctuary with a “Quiet Time.” Those times were life changers for many of us. We were so blessed to have this unique woman in our little town for those few years!
Thanks, Michelle, for allowing me this walk down Memory Lane. Blessed Easter to you and yours, my friend!
What a beautiful story, Patti! Thank you for sharing it!