It must be nearly 20 years that I was staying in Dublin overnight on Good Friday. The hotel seemed eerily quiet to me and when we had a meal in the dining room, I was a little surprised that I was allowed only half a glass of wine with my meal.
Even today, there are strict limits on the hospitality industry, prompting the line: “We were told not to eat meat on Good Friday, so how come the Irish close the pubs and not the butchers?”
It’s a quote that isn’t meant to be disrespectful, but it does show something of the relationship we in Ireland have with alcohol. Even more so, I would suggest, it is very revealing of the way Christian festivals are now used and abused by the secular world.
We’re long accustomed to the way the joyous meaning of Christmas has been hijacked by commercial greed, we now see Easter as nothing more than an opportunity to over-indulge in wine and chocolate.
So much so that some bright spark in Tesco marketing department thought it would be a brilliant idea to plug their offers on beer and cider with the slogan “Good Friday just got better.”
I understand that many people don’t celebrate Christianity at this time of year, but you’ve got to wonder why it would simply fail to register in the brain of some guy in a suit that latching on to an important day in their calendar would cause offence to religious groups.
(Note: calling out some marketing guy as an insensitive fool is one of the few times one gets away with saying “he” rather than “he/she”, but in all honesty I can’t imagine a woman being so crass!)
At least Tesco had the manners to apologise.
But, I wonder, how many people did actually by-pass the limitations of pub and hotel liquor licensing on Good Friday by simply stocking up on the carry out to make the day Jesus was crucified nothing more meaningful than a home boozefest.
Yet, as I get older, I realise more powerfully than ever that Good Friday is a very sombre day, something very deep, emotional and meaningful.
This year, on Good Friday morning, I watched a television programme “Fern Britton’s Holy Land” in which the presenter visited the sacred city of Jerusalem, and walked in the footsteps of Jesus. Among the places she visited was the Judgement Gate, where Jesus is believed to have emerged after he had been whipped and crowned with thorns on his walk to Calvary.
“I am not a very good Christian, but I am one nonetheless,” said Fern, who shed tears at one point.
That evening, I attended a Good Friday service at Rossorry when I, and I am sure many of the congregation, thought deeply of the spiritual impact and meaning of the day of sacrifice.
But whether you marked Good Friday in a religious way or not, we are indeed fortunate in this part of the world that we have the freedom of thought an conscience to follow our faith, or not.
A couple of weeks ago, on Palm Sunday, ISIS bombed Christian churches in northern Egypt, killing scores of worshippers and injuring hundreds more. As shocking as that was, the same thing happened last December as these extremists in their furious, fanatical attempt to overthrow western societies and values deliberately targeted those who follow Christ.
Indeed, Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world. It is a startling fact that last year alone, 90,000 Christians across the world were killed because of their faith.
Often these people are murdered in tribal conflicts, sometimes ironically because their conscience sees them refusing to take up arms. And actually, that figure was slightly down on the previous year, so it would seem that Christians are being killed in alarming numbers. Simply for being Christian.
This is nothing new.
A couple of months ago, I went to see the Martin Scorsese film “Silence.” It’s a brilliantly-made movie, but not a night’s fun; graphic, as you would expect from Scorsese, it tells the story of two young Portuguese priests in the early 1600s who went to Japan to trace their mentor, Father Cristiano Ferreira.
What they found were brutal Japanese authorities who forced Christians underground, and yet in extremely harsh conditions many people of faith risked excruciating death to receive the sacraments and follow their faith.
This was based on a novel, but represented a very real danger that people faced hundreds of years ago; and how many times in my lifetime have we heard of Christians in former totalitarian Communist regimes following their faith in secret?
Considering the courage and hardship of billions of people over centuries, it seems to me a minor sacrifice to do without a glass of wine, or to “give up” some little luxury as a symbol of sacrifice in Lent.
And yet, we should be mindful too of the way our own faith is under attack in more subtle ways.
It seems to be the fashion nowadays for people to scoff at the Christian faith. Some would deny the very existence of Jesus as a figure in history. Far from believing that he was the Son of God, the Messiah, some writers suggest that Jesus never lived; that he was just “an idea” a hypothesis, made-up.
I was astounded to read a survey that of those adults questioned in England, 40 per cent did not believe that Jesus was a real historical figure.
And in one of the Sunday newspapers, a commentator wrote a very articulate, intelligent piece suggesting that Easter is the time for agnostics to recognise the debt modern civilisation owed to Christianity. The writer said he would be in church at Easter, even though he did not believe. Perhaps we Christians should at least welcome his presence in church, no?
Well… The idea of Christianity without Christ disturbs me. His death and resurrection is at the very heart of what I believe; Christianity is not only some sort of social template for living, it is that and much more.
And furthermore, perhaps the greatest danger to our faith is within ourselves. Maybe we have it too easy, and no wonder that Easter is just a day for a lie-in. If we truly follow Christ, we should follow his example of love. That doesn’t mean a lack of compassion for minorities, or abusing the influence of church and state to bestow privilege on the powerful.
On Good Friday, some Christians say “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming” and if they really mean it, they should truly follow Christ’s example of love.