Green Hill near all of us

For a number of years, we have attended the Solemn Liturgy for Good Friday in the parish church less than a mile from our home. The altar is stripped and the priests and the choir are all in black. The organ music is subdued. The hymns reflective. The sung Psalms sad and soulful. These are about 75 serious, solemn minutes...

The language is hardly current. There are many abstract, archaic words: salvation, affliction, iniquity, sin, transgression. And many references to some sort of mysterious transaction between the behaviour of Jesus of Nazareth throughout his trial and crucifixion, and the rest of us and our ‘salvation’. There is an undercurrent of ‘reproach’ - one of the psalms is specifically entitled ‘reproaches’ reminding the hearers of their lack of gratitude for God’s goodness.

And so the question always arises – why would anyone want to attend a service like this? What would a totally secular young person slipping in at the back make of it all? Would there be anything to attract them to join this group of people who, in this service, might seem to be focusing on the failure of human beings to live up to what some Invisible Deity might require of them?

And then comes the reading of the central story – probably ten minutes with most of the congregation standing throughout as two chapters of the Gospel of John are read. That story and the Man at the centre of it is the heart of the matter.

The worship language and ideas in the service may be archaic but the final events of the gospel story could almost be taken straight out of a 2025 TV news bulletin. Within the first few minutes we have all the ingredients of contemporary life – and more:  an arrest at night, a betrayal, violence between the party of the ‘suspect’ and those come to make the arrest. There are a couple of exotic occurrences: military men falling over for no obvious reason and a severed ear being replaced and healed by the central character.

But as the story proceeds there are many more of the familiar ingredients of our daily news bulletins: heroic individuals, dastardly deceptions, cowardly politicians, people being ‘disappeared’ because they are in the way. There are naïve, powerful and powerless groups, scapegoating, loyalty and disloyalty, mixtures of politics and religion with an undercurrent of menace and intimidation alongside the casual callous cruelty of the occupying forces. And that’s all before you get to the brutish violence of the torture, the crucifixion itself, the taunting of the bystanders and one of those crucified with him, and the silent devotion of the family and friends loyal to the accused, standing around his cross.

All contemporary human life is here. In some ways little has changed though the ‘scenery’ may differ. Around the world people are still tortured, religious minorities are persecuted, people are murdered for thinking the ‘wrong’ things. There is a great deal of evil around. Just as there is a deep desire for forgiveness. And expiation. You have only to read serious literature and watch film to recognise that. Some sage has said that there is a deep desire in all of us for forgiveness. It’s a profound but difficult to acknowledge part of being human. The Easter story is about the man who somehow revealed that the mystery of love and forgiveness is freely available to us all at the heart of the universe – with understanding and without reproach.

The genius of the Christian story is that somehow personal and institutional violence can be redeemed by loving and principled divine and human action. It may cost a great deal. But that is the only way that new life rises in individuals and tired oppressive systems.

Image: Duccio di Buoninsegna On the Way to Calvary (Scene 19) Siena