Many people I know, myself included, have spent many years struggling with the language of Good Friday. A few years ago I stumbled upon a small book called Praying a New Story by Michael Morwood, an Australian, who speaks of the salvation story in a broader context that appeals to me. He speaks of a "universe so immersed in God’s presence, a Presence at work in all places, at all times, and in every human being who ever existed." In this view "a fresh understanding of Jesus emerges. Jesus reveals our connectedness with God and reveals wonderful, freeing insight about human existence and its possibilities."

Morwood writes a series of remembrances about Jesus for Good Friday, written perhaps from the perspective of close friends, much as we might say gathered at the bedside of a dying loved one or at a  memorial service.

"I remember a man who had dreams of what might be: that people would be set free from ideas and images about God that enslaved them, that people would believe that through their everyday acts of human kindness they are intimately connected with the sacred, that people would live ‘in peace, in God’s presence, all the days of their lives'(Luke 1). I remember a man driven by his dreams."

"I remember a man who had to find quiet places to pray and think about things, a man who had to live by faith, a man who had to search for answers, a man who had to think about which path to follow, a man who looked to his friends for support and understanding. I remember someone very much like me."

"I remember a man whose dream was shattered, who broke down and cried over what could have been, who knew pain of failure and powerlessness, who knew what it was like to feel broken and terribly alone. I remember someone human like all of us."

"I remember a man crucified. He was a failure, abandoned by his friends, taunted, despised, enduring a shameful and agonizing death. I remember a man whose faith in all he believed was tested to the limits."

"I remember a man who forgave, not just once, but over and over, a man who embodied the generosity and limitless outpouring of the Source of all life, a man whose life and death point us to another dimension of what it means to be human. No power on earth, nothing, could move this man from what he believed. I remember a man who inspires me by the way he died."

Each of us comes to Good Friday in our own way. In our remembering, may we come to know the Presence of the Holy in ways that will lead us not only to shout Alleluia on Easter on Sunday…..but to allow our very lives to become an Alleluia.

A blessed Easter to you……………………..