Good Friday

There was nothing good about that first ‘Good Friday.’ There was madness, a mob mentality, a turning away from everything that makes us human. There was plotting, betrayal, the changing of loyalties, financial gain for the most heinous of acts, false accusations, false imprisonment, interrogation and torture. And if things weren’t bad enough and getting out of control, a suicide in the midst of all the mayhem, and running for cover for fear the blame would spread. It could have played out differently, but with the denial of responsibility, leadership disguised as cowardice, a screaming crowd full of fury and bloodlust threatening to become a riot, the end was clear before it had even begun. But he knew it was coming, long before those around him witnessed it firsthand, for it had to happen that way.

 

shattered hopes

on a cold hard cross

abandoned

 

 

I looked at life on Friday,

and saw desolation.

 

People at war passed by –

armies,

destroying each other;

generals,

arguing over body counts;

military manufacturers,

boasting of strike capacities;

refugees,

rummaging in garbage cans,

clutching 

their tattered dignity

around them.

And as they bled

I bled, 

and cried “Why?”

but nobody knew

or heard

or cared

that I cared.

 

-       Philip Andrews, from The Three Days of Easter 1971