It was a time...

Today is Good Friday. And while I am not a particularly religious man, at least in the conventional and organized sense, this day has always been a sacred day to me. For whether it was this exact day or not, almost 2,000 years ago, a young man, the son of a local carpenter, spent three years wandering the hills of Galilee preaching a message of love and forgiveness to a population that was being occupied by the most powerful army of its time. They were angry, and rightly so. The last thing they wanted to listen to was one of their own preaching forgiveness and love. Yet the message caught on, not in a big way, at first, but it caught on, none the less. And it spread. All over the world. A message of peace in a time of war. Imagine that. And, to make matters more incongruous, he claimed to be the son of God. And that we were all sons and daughters of God, and that we should start acting like it in our own behavior, and in our behavior to others.

We all know the rest of the story. It seemed that the only way he (and the loving God he represented) could convince us of that love was to sacrifice himself for us. He preached that "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13. And so he did. Once more, it seems he knew from his birth that this act of supreme sacrifice was his destiny, and he embraced it. Now we all know of the heroism of our own countrymen and women that have sacrificed their lives for our safety, and their sacrifice is both noble and loving. But to know, from your birth, that this sacrifice was your destiny, the only road you could take because that was why you were put on earth, and to live with that knowledge for 33 years, is to me amazing. I think that is why I always have connected Christmas and Easter together in my own mind. For Christmas to me is the birth of the promise of this love, and Easter is the proof of it.

And so, every Good Friday, I take the phone off the hook, keep the television and radio off, and work in silence from 12:00 noon until 3:00 PM, in memory of that sacrifice, and of the sacrifices of others who repeated this sacrifice with their own lives out of love for all of us. For me...

It Was A Time...
Christopher Bogart

It was the time that the world knew well..
A time of occupation.
Metal breastplates and course cloth,
Each searching for room and board
In the City of Bread.

On a hillside,
On a floor of straw,
An Infant lie,
His tiny head nudging the aged worn wood
Of a converted manger.

Angels hover round his bed of straw,
Course shepherds pipe their tunes,
Eastern kings leave gifts of gold
That glitter and spice
The ancient night
So many years ago.

Soon, all depart...

Then suddenly...
Two Strong and Gentle Hands
Cradle his Little Form,
Guiding him to the mouth of the cave.

There, –
At the very edge of the world,
He extends his tiny hands
Past the Cruciform Shadow
To reach
To touch and hold
The Star.