Good Friday

In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, my dad couldn't sing national songs. The Nazis saw the church's Psalter, however, as innocuous. Little did they know.

This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. All of the readings for this Sunday focus on kingship—David’s, God’s, Jesus’. Jesus’ views on kingship are revealed in his famous discussion with Pilate. Jesus makes it clear that his kingship is directed at testifying to the truth.

Jesus is a king with a specific mission: he has come into the world to testify to the truth.

Opening the book of Hebrews is a bit like stepping into Transporter Room on the starship Enterprise. A few verses are all it takes to beam us suddenly down into an alien world filled with angels, sacrificial purification rites and Melchizedek. There’s very little about Hebrews that looks, sounds or feels familiar to 21st-century people, all of which makes dealing with this letter a challenge (and explains why so many of us avoid it).

There is no denying that in today’s world a culture of loneliness and isolation plagues individuals of every age, race and socioeconomic status. Although the church provides a sacred community that may help combat this loneliness, even the most devout believers have, at one time or another, questioned how or even if God is present in their suffering.

The psalmist knows loneliness. Even the most faithful believers have anguished over the fear that somehow God is not listening to their cries.

If anything remains sacred in our culture, it’s the family. Yet Jesus challenged the family’s ultimacy.

This Hebrews text is a word crafted for a specific people by a caring preacher.

It is not pain and violence that God desires, says the preacher of Hebrews. It is human life as God created it to be, summoned it to be.

I wonder and worry that people perceive Christ’s rule to be similar to the queen of England’s rule. Do we view Christ as one surrounded with the art and beauty of a tradition that is more antique than active? Do we see this figure of salvation as hopelessly outdated and practically mute in these postmodern times?