Yesterday was Good Friday.
Yesterday I kept calling it Black Friday. I was gently reminded by a few people that Black Friday is a different thing from Good Friday. But in my head Good Friday is the blackest Friday. So I went and looked it up, and apparently Good Friday can also be called Black Friday, so I'm not totally crazy. It's not only used to reference possibly the largest day for consumerism and materialism in the US. I almost never think of this day as Good Friday. I know in my head that it is a good thing; I know that Christ's death is ultimately for my good, and without it, I would be eternally separated from the God I was made to know and therefore be forever unsatisfied and wanting. But I still see it as Black. Maybe it's partially from growing up Catholic. Every year at the end of the lenten season, the church reads the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. The entire congregation reads the part of the Jews, chanting in unison, "Crucify him, crucify him." When Christ dies, the lights dim and are not restored until he has risen. It's an entirely dark and somber atmosphere, and really quite powerful. I feel transported back to the day of the crucifixion. Can you imagine? The Jews who waited so long for their Savior hail him in on Palm Sunday with joy, thinking that at last they will be free of Roman oppression. No, they don't understand the freedom Christ is really offering, but imagine how wonderful they must feel. At long last, here is the King. We have waited lifetimes-- our ancestors died waiting, and here we get to see the King! Everyone is filled with joy. Hosanna! Hosanna! At long last, Hosanna! But Jesus is not what they expected. He does not overthrow the government, and the people are restless. The fearful religious leaders, who have put their entire salvation in the law and see how Jesus makes that crash around them, stir up the crowd. They are angry. If here is the King, where is what we were promised? He lies, he lies, he is not the King. Crucify him. Crucify him for the hope he gave us. Crucify him for lying. Crucify him. Here the Jews kill the very man they have been waiting for. Here they murder their Messiah. And after Christ dies, when the earth shakes and the veil is torn, after he has given his last breath and a man proclaims "truly this man was the son of God!" After the realization sets in, what then? Can you imagine the pain? The pain of the ones who realized they murdered their Messiah, the only one who would free them and bring them back into a time where God was with them. The pain of the disciples, who spent the last few years of their lives with Jesus. They got to know him and love him both as a man and as God. But he died. The one who promised everlasting life has died. What is blacker than that? What is darker than despair? What can possibly be worse than to have your hopes culminate onto one man, and watch him die before you, knowing that you had a hand in his death by your betrayal, your words, or your abandonment. Yes, Friday is Good for us all. But how very black it must have been that day. Maybe I think of it as Black Friday because it sets such a stark contrast to Easter Sunday. The joy of the resurrection is all the more powerful when it follows the darkness of the crucifixion. So yesterday was dark, and today is, too. The Catholic church also celebrates Easter for weeks after the actual day. Each Mass has a liturgical title signifying its place in the calendar, so you'll go into church and it might be "The Fourth Sunday of Easter." We should be filled with so much joy at the resurrection. And I always feel it more strongly when I understand the darkness before He rose. I can always connect it to the darkness in my life before Christ. Rachel Fruit and Labor
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I was raised Catholic, and while I no longer identify as such, there are some practices Catholics do that many Protestant denominations don't. One of those is the practice of confession.
Sure, I often found the practice of confessing to the priest rigid and intimidating. I usually lied, or talked about something insignificant to mask the things I knew I ought to confess. But at least it was something that we talked about. Confession was something important. I don't see a lot of emphasis on confession anywhere, really. Scripture talks about the importance of practicing confession, and bringing our sins into the light. But I rarely see it happening anywhere. We talk about "accountability partners" but those are generally reserved for people struggling with sexual sin. Most people going about their lives generally don't have accountability partners. I know I don't have one. So what then? I try and make a practice of confessing. Not every single little sin, because goodness knows that would be a lot of confessing. I'd spend all day confessing. I have too many wayward thoughts, too many sinful moments where my mind goes down a dark alley or my heart reveals exactly how polluted it is. But I try to confess things that linger. Things that, when I acknowledge that they are wrong and ask God to forgive me, don't go away. Like the spike of selfish jealousy I get when people run around asking others for help dancing and i'm passed by ("dancing is what I'M good at!"). Or even slightly bigger things, like when a certain godly man is starting to be very distracting and I can't seem to let it go. These are not the sort of sins you would get an accountability partner for, but I'd argue that they're just as important. Any sin that we allow to linger tends to gain power over us. And I've noticed that, the sooner I confess them, the sillier they sound when I say them out loud, and the more easily I can refute the lies I'm believing and turn back to God. Like I said, I don't have an accountability partner, which means I have a tendency to confess things without warning. I'll randomly announce to Anna, "I need to confess this. I get jealous sometimes when I see how much our friends fuss over you, and not me. It seems like they care more about you than me, and I know that's dumb, but I think I need to say it out loud so it doesn't make me bitter." And we'll talk about it and just the act of sharing helps me to let it go. She's gotten pretty good at rolling with my outbursts. I suppose the point of this post is that I think we ought to make a practice of confessing. It's easier to do when you have a mandated number of times you have to meet with the priest and confess your sins. It's admittedly harder in a Christian culture where, despite our praise of confession, we rarely practice it. But I challenge you (you 10 people who read my blog) to start a practice of confession with someone. It would be great if we had a culture where we all felt safe to confess our struggles without fear of condemnation. I've noticed an improvement in my own life. Rachel Fruit and Labor |
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