Good Friday

It is Good Friday, also known as Black Friday to some. Isaac Newton calculated that it occurred AD34 on the Friday following Passover owing to the difference between the biblical and the Julian calendars. Nonetheless.

Tomorrow I'll pull out the Easter baskets. They are kept in the storage room, along with everything else "Easter" related, none of it having to do with crosses and death but rather with chicks and bunnies, soft little furry critters which can, in reality, be easily slaughtered (that is, if you think about it).

Lately, in the middle of work and sorting papers and chasing contracts and feeding boys and cleaning house, doing laundry, hauling mulch, painting, sorting, packing, etcetcetc..I have been reading the book of Mark (in the bible). And why the book of Mark?..Dunno. Just turned to it. (big sigh) Anyway. In that book, like in other books, there is a picture of Jesus, in his humanity. You know, walking and talking and sighing (it says that alot in there, I've marked it down in a notebook the number of times Jesus sighs, its funny in a sad-not-so-funny way). And then the disciples. Human. Fallible. Peter "rebuked" Christ (Mark 8:32). That was in the very famous scene where Jesus turns around and tells Peter to "get away from me Satan"..Because Peter did not understand the workings of God and so in his Peter-ish way he forged ahead and told Christ he was wrong. To which Jesus responded, "You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men." (Mark 8:33) and it was true, he didn't. Ironically, it was during an earlier conversation that Jesus asked Peter who he was and Peter said, "You are the Christ." (Mark 8:29).

Jesus did alot on a very basic level and then things far beyond basic (the healing, the teaching, the hanging out with Elijah and Moses, the praying, the teaching, the casting out demons, the feeding thousands, the teaching)..and again.. How often it shows Jesus just walking around, talking with the disciples. It was like he was constantly having to reinforce his points, constantly having to teach them, to remind them that he would not be there with them always, therefore, they better get IT. And still, they misunderstood, discussed, argued..they were human, born to culpability, to error. Yet, Jesus loved them. He loved them and died for them, for me, for us. His death, his blood if you will, was shed to pay for my stupidity, arrogance, errors. For MY SIN. How can I ever get beyond that? How can I, as a human, ever understand the enormous cost? I can't. I don't. I accept it, because at this point, what else can I do... And you?

"At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour...With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last." Mark 15:33,37.