Blog 2365 – 04.15.2022
No Easter Without A Good Friday
Whatever one chooses to believe regarding the Christian Easter Story there would be no Easter without a Good Friday. Easter is actually one of those Pagan holidays that was changed when the Roman Emperor made Christianity the state religion replacing their many gods with one. Easter had long been a resurrection story where spring was celebrated with renewed life coming back from the death of winter.
A couple of days ago I attached one of my favorite cover songs, The Rose, which ends with the great line, “Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow, lies the seed that with the sun’s love, in the spring becomes the rose.”
Whether one believes a specific Jesus (savior) arose three days from the grave on an Easter Sunday some two thousand twenty-two years ago (give or take a few years) the Good Friday story of a brother who loved us enough to die for us is on it’s own a wonderful love story. That Jesus is purported by his early followers to have said shortly before that first Good Friday, “No greater love has any man than to lay day his life for his friends.” We honor our military and first responders for just such noble sacrifices. They teach themselves to run toward danger instead of away from it as our natural reflex dictates. That takes either a lot of courage or a very serious crucifixion complex, and yes if you are wondering, the psychiatrists name the complex after what took place in the mind of one individual of the vast number the Romans put to death on crosses across the Roman Empire all of whom were believed to have committed some crime against the Empire.
Pontus Pilate the Roman Governor saw no fault in Jesus the Nazarene and wanted to let him walk, but the crowd, egged on by the jealous Jewish leaders shouted, “You are not Caesar’s friend if you let him go for he claims to be a god and there is no god but Caesar, we have no king but Caesar.” They had ole Pilate over a barrel. It was customary to sometimes write the accused’s charges on a board and nail it above his head on his cross. Pilate had written according to one Gospel account in the three languages used in Jerusalem at the time (Aramaic, Greek, and Latin) “The King of the Jews”
The Jewish leaders complained it should read “He claims to be the King of the Jews.” Pilate replied, “I have written what I have written.”
I do not think Pilate believed that Jesus was the son of God anymore than you or I or that as a Roman himself that anyone would be willing to die for such a paltry title as King of the Jews whose own god had many times pronounced them a hardheaded, stubborn, and undeserving bunch. I think Pilate was just trying to announce to all who saw what a travesty he thought this young man’s death to be.
Less than three hundred years later another story goes that the Roman Emperor Constantine had a dream that he would defeat all his enemies under the standard of the cross. Believing that dream he made Christianity the state religion and the cross it’s standard.
One last cross reference from Moses delivering the Children of Israel from Egypt, once along the journey a great sickness came over the people and Moses was instructed to lift a snake upon his rod which was a stick and that all who looked upon the snake would be healed. The symbol of the medical profession is that snake on a stick. I, for one do not have a lot of faith in doctors, snakes, sticks, or crosses anymore, but I still do believe in the power of love to heal and to save.
Happy Good Friday to all, however you choose to honor it. “This is the day that the Lord (Love) and I have made we will rejoice in it.”
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
No Matter What
theencouragingword 