Good Friday

In my Church, Christmas and Easter are first among the holy days of the year. I can certainly understand Christmas. It's intuitive that without Christmas there would be no other holy days, nor would there be any church for about 2 billion of the earth's inhabitants, unless, of course, we all switched over and followed Al Gore, but that's for another day.

I appreciate Easter, too, as the ultimate miracle that proves the rest of the story. It's the icing on the cake, the concluding and convincing hammer to the story. But for me, even in the years when the Church and I went our separate directions, Good Friday has always had a very special place. To put it bluntly, given the power, anybody would resurrect themselves. I know I would and you would, too. I mean, how tough a call is that?

But to die a horrible death, with perfect foreknowledge of the agony you'll suffer as well as the lack of appreciation from those you're gifting? That takes something special.

Those who saw Mel Gibson's movie of a few years ago, The Passion of the Christ, had it brought home in a way that no other method could do as well. The visuals were so strong that the audience could nearly feel the sweat, the blood, the flailed skin. And that was just a movie. Can you imagine being able to know all of that in advance and still volunteering to go on with it, all for the sake of people thousands of years down the road?

I know the litany, Christ died for our sins.

For me, the stronger realization is that Christ died to save me.

I don't say thank you nearly enough.