This is the first Good Friday in Christian history to be observed primarily online. Millions of Christians are attending worship services through digital means.
Unless they have their own chapel, that is.
The Christ family (pronounced “Crist”) lives on a slice of pastureland an hour southeast of Oklahoma City. They usually worship with the Wewoka Church of Christ. But three years ago, Ryan Christ constructed a tiny chapel, about twelve feet wide and twenty-five feet long, on their property. It has six small pews and can hold about a dozen non-social-distancing adults.
As the Christian Chronicle article notes, “That’s more than enough for a family of four, stuck at home in the midst of a pandemic.”
According to his wife, Ryan is always looking for ways to share his faith. His last name helps. When people ask him if he’s related to Jesus Christ, “he always comes back with, ‘I’m not him, but I know him,’” she says.
“The symbol of Christianity is an instrument of death”
So can we, because of what happened on this day twenty centuries ago.
Karl Barth is often considered the most important theologian of the twentieth century. In 1962, on his one visit to America, he was asked how he would summarize the millions of words he had published. Barth replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”
And what the Bible tells us is that Jesus loves us enough to die for us.
Frederick Buechner observed: “A six-pointed star, a crescent moon, a lotus—the symbols of other religions suggest beauty and light. The symbol of Christianity is an instrument of death.”
People wear crosses today as if they were originally jewelry, but they were not. They were instruments of the most horrific, tortured form of execution ever devised.
But it’s not…
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