Friday, April 22, 2011

Three Good Friday Meditations

Tree of Life by Burne Jones
from V&A

Death

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And it was good.

And He walked with man in the garden.

And in the middle of the garden stood a tree, its fruit pleasant to the eye. God told man not to eat of the tree, but the serpent whispered to man "You will be like God."

So man took the fruit of the tree that day in the garden.

And man died.

Wherever he went, death followed in his wake. The earth did not give up food without toil, and the food bought with sweat would just as quickly rot away. Birth came with suffering and pain, and the children lived their lives in the valley of the shadow of death.

Then a Man came, a Man who was also God. This God-Man walked the wasteland of death. He knew His purpose, and with resoluteness He walked towards it. The God-Man took the wine, born of the rot and the bread born of toil, and declared it to be His body.

Then the God-Man went to the tree.

And God died.

Desecration
Piss Christ (Vandalized) by Serrano
from Art Observed

They did not know what it was they were doing. They beheld a man, a dirty carpenter from Nazareth, and he called himself God.

Could you imagine? The Holy God of Israel coming into the world of dirt and blood and flesh. It would be as if the most holy found itself submersed in piss.

So they did what any one who honored God would do, the scarred that which desecrated their God.


Black Box
From Wiki Answers
Darkness

God died, and darkness covered the land. 

God died, and the veil was torn. 

In time, we would come to see this for what it was. The death of death itself. The end of the separation between God and man.

But it was not this yet. The veil was torn, and it showed the holy of holies. It showed the place where God had once dwelt in His glory. 

It tore and it showed the temple which for hundreds of years had stood empty of His glory.