Friday, April 3, 2015

Good Friday - Why We Stand

Tonight I didn't go to my regular church.  I went to the one I like to visit infrequently.  It was nice to be a little unknown tonight, feel like I wasn't being watched and just blend in.

There was the extended reading with Jesus in the Garden thru to his death.  Several voices read the parts and in the beginning we sat and listened as the dialogue  jumped around the room.  The final scene, the end of Jesus' life, we were asked to stand.

It felt powerful to stand there.  I was standing with Jesus as he died.  I was being a witness to this event.  I was claiming my desire to live a life of Peace and not back down.

It felt humbling to stand there.  I was standing with Jesus as he died.  I knew that I have rejected him. That sometimes Love is too much to handle.  That I want it my way.  I want things to happen with power that comes from being right, from making moves, from violence.

Oh, that last one is hard to admit.  If I am truly honest, I do want violence.  I just want someone else to do it.  I want to turn away and let it happen.  I want to pretend it isn't happening.  Because if I don't pretend, I either have to admit I want it.  Or I have to stand up and say, without violence, stop.  And I don't even know how.  And I'm not willing to die.

Tonight, standing and listening I knew my place.  And it wasn't on the Cross.

It is beside the Cross saying remember me.
And Jesus says, of course.