In the midst of the explosion of Spring, millions of earth’s people observe the season of Easter. A most sacred time.

A significant aspect of Holy Week: Palm Sunday to Easter is ‘Good Friday’. Unlike the Christian holidays of Easter and Christmas, Good Friday has not become secularized. It remains a somber day of religious reflection for Christians worldwide, and has been so for centuries.

For many Christians, Good Friday is a time to remember the suffering and dying of Jesus before marking the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. It’s a reminder of the ultimate sacrifice made by Christ to atone for humanity’s sins.

The idea of human or human-divine sacrifice (atonement) is an ancient pre-scientific idea. It is based on some serious assumptions about the nature of reality: there is a conscious, all powerful agent in life that has human like emotions and who needs a bribe/ransom to bless.

For me that is a tragic misunderstanding. I am not the first to believe so. From the earliest times others challenged the sensational stories about Jesus. They diminish the life and message of human Jesus (Joseph bar Joseph): He was a brave human spiritual teacher who embraced and spoke of God as a loving father offering blessings and affirmation to all. In his faith God sought his children to love one another and create and maintain a community of compassion and justice.

For me Holy Week and Easter is a sacred time to remember and honor the central tenets of Jesus’ life and teachings: reciprocal love that practices compassion, justice, and lives healthy interdependency. It is not about blood and death and supernatural resurrection rather it is about courage in the face of trials and the challenges of living fiercely compassionate and caring relatedness.

Happy, Holy Easter pilgrims. We are all in this together. Best to do it in love.

Love, Doak
minister@uufec.com