Good Friday - Part the Last

You will forgive me for not being on Easter Day yet even though today is Easter. I want to talk about the final event of Good Friday first. Drew and I proceeded directly to Pearce Memorial Church from the stations of the cross event. Pearce is just down the road from my church, on the other side of the campus.

We entered the darkened sanctuary just as they were beginning the service. Thick shades covered the normally unfettered windows down both sides of the sanctuary. Above the baptismal area there is an enormous stained glass window depicting Jesus the good shepherd and king. Someone had mounted and hung thick curtains the whole length of the window - you wouldn't have even known a window was there. The overhead chandeliers were dimmed, the wall sconces were not on. The only bright light in the vast room came from nine lighted tapers set on the communion table on the platform.

There was a hushed excitement in the air, a sense of expectancy as the worshippers huddled together in families and small groups. The service was quiet, somber, filled with Scripture and exhortation to think on the last week of Christ's life. Drew was there to experience the tenebrae part, the extinguishing of the candles until there was nothing left but darkness.

I don't know if he had realized there would be communion, but he willingly walked down the aisle with me to the altar. We moved in silence, no music to ease the passing of time. No one talked. No one was impatient. No one was in a hurry. Drew whispered in my ear that he planned to stand instead of kneel at the altar. I didn't even realize that he had knelt after all until he told me later.

There was a certain sense of sacredness, a sad coming together to mark a life and a death that meant something to each of us. Then the part for which Drew had waited - the final readings and the extinguishing of the candles on the altar. The first person read, then picked up the small candle snuffer, put out his candle, and while the smoke was still rising, left the table. The second person read a Scripture, picked up the snuffer, extinguished the second candle, and descended the stairs, moving out of view. Then the third and the fourth, moving down the line in order until all nine candles had been read over and put out.

The light scattering on the vaulted ceiling became dimmer and less diffuse. I wondered whether we would be able to see well enough to leave the sanctuary. There would be no talking, just leaving. Leaving as you do when someone you love has been buried, and there is nothing left to see, no one to hold on to. Just an emptiness. You leave for no other reason than that you can't really stay where you are.

Drew whispered in my ear, "They have the balcony lights on." - as if to say Rats! We won't be in total darkness. It turned out to be not the balcony lights, but the hallway lights beyond the balcony that were lit. There was just enough light to create a sense of night, of closing, of the end of day. Just enough light to walk safely.

Our departure was eerie - hundreds of people walking quickly, headed out into the chilly night, stopping only long enough to button a coat or tie a scarf. Shoes muffled against the thick carpet, a few keys clacked, then were silenced. It almost reminded me of scenes of the Holocaust when crowds were herded to a destiny they did not know, did not want to know.

We, at least, had seen the end of the movie. We know the scene about to play. But tonight, we walk silently, quietly, stirred to remember the events took place so long ago and which still mean life to the world in this age.