Friday 10 April 2020
 
Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois 

Dear Friends,
 
Today is “Good” Friday. We remember Jesus’ crucifixion. Our service is on-line at 7:00. The Methodists across the street will join us for part of the service. Check out firstpres.live for ways to log on. 
 
Here’s a remembrance from last year’s service. It’s a little dark, but, hey, it’s Good Friday:
 
* * *
 
The service is over.
 
The congregation left in silence without benediction of choir-song and postlude, without their warmly coded small talk—What about this weather, eh? How’re the kids?
 
The dutifully departed steadied one another by holding hands, heads bowed, stepping gingerly down carpeted stairs, shuffling into bracing spring twilight that neither glows as brightly as we’d like this fickle time of year, nor lingers as long as we hope. Winter was brutal, and spring is awakening like an arthritic old man—with struggle.
 
We read what Mark wrote about you: perfumed hair, rebuked disciples, bread, wine, garden, their sleep, your prayer, that detestable kiss. Mark keeps it brief, nothing stretched out save those long arms of yours, and that whipped, derided body, and those forsaken prayers.
 
I could not look up from the pulpit as I read those jagged words, your loneliness crushing me most of all. I quivered with Peter, and want to blame him, the bastard, for what I wouldn’t have done, either, despite my righteous bluster.
 
The candles of the makeshift cross are long quenched. Pulpit, font, table hide, covered in repentant black cloth. Crowd, choir, guests, some stunned, all sobered, are gone—depleted as after an election lost. 
 
Members of the worship committee straggle behind, close up the sound system at the back of the quiet sanctuary, collect discarded bulletins, double check the candles. Notre Dame’s ashes still smolder across the ocean.
 
Someone breaks the silence, whispers about the Easter paraments: “Shall we replace Lenten purple with Easter white tonight?” “Can we liberate the worship stations from the alien drapes?” “Can we move the cross out of the way, now, behind the piano, perhaps?” “Can we set the empty stands on the chancel for Sunday’s flowers?”
 
They want to erase this service, it seems, by cleaning it up, turning back the clock to a more ordered time.
 
But there is no way around this night, is there? We cannot give the centurion his due without your agony, and we wish we could. Like Peter, we wish we could save you the trouble, and we would be believers without cross and thorny crown, and you would still be Lord.
 
This darkened silence is playing tricks on us. We still hear our own voices in the crowd shouting, “Crucify.” We hear the pinging of those nails and your baritone prayers, the jeering, the cursing, the clicking dice, the heaving sound of your breathing, which is why we can’t keep silence. We whisper about décor, and what we mean to say is, “Can we turn back time? Can we get our chance to undo what our ancestors did? Can we redeem our own dark hearts?”
 
Vulture-like, they want to ready our space for Easter, vacuum something, polish some brass, water the lilies. Especially, they want to hide that smoldering, dark cross.
 
After your death, Lord, when did those women busy their hands, readying their burial spices to anoint your body after sabbath? Did they try whispering this night out of their heads, also? It’s time to let bygones be bygones. It’s best to get back to normal. Time, maybe, will make things right.
 
Can somebody, at least, turn up the lights?
                                                                    (Matt Matthews)
 
 PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church 
 
* * *
 
No movie tonight. It’s Good Friday.
 
(See you on Easter: FirstPres.Live  )