Good Friday

From el cabrero's diary "Good Friday" at Street Prophets:

The practice was in part a spectacle of power and degradation. Hengel continues, "By the public display of a naked victim at a prominent place--at a crossroads, in the theatre, on high ground, at the place of his crime--crucifixion also represented his uttermost humiliation, which had a numinous dimension to it. " Often the crucified were denied burial and simply left on the cross, which for many in the ancient world was worse than the death itself.

Historians and believers agree that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem during Passover week shortly after he caused a disturbance at the Temple. Passover was more than a religious holiday to the Jews in Roman controlled Judea: it was a subversive celebration of freedom. The Roman occupiers would have been on high alert for the slightest disturbance at such politically charged times.

One of my memories from when I was growing up is spending the weekend of Easter at my grandmother's house, and I would attend services with her on Good Friday. On Holy Saturday we would take baskets of food to the church to be blessed. This season holds a lot of memories for me, but it has only been in recent years that I began to learn the significance of crucifixion in first century Palestine.

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