Good Friday 2011, Hearts' Burning

Good Friday Evening

April 22, 2011

Many ancient mythologies tell of a bird of great beauty, with colored plumage of red and gold. It first appeared on the primeval mound that rose from the watery chaos at the first creation. It first cry, so melodious that the rising sun stops to listen—marks the beginning of time and its rhythmic division into hours, days, weeks, years. It lives on dew, killing nothing and crushing nothing it lands on.

This bird has a very long lifespan, some say 500, some say 1,000 years. As the end of its life approaches, the bird builds a pyre nest of the branches of aromatic trees, like the myrrh. It sets it afire and is consumed. After three days there arises a young bird, who gathers the ashes of the nest, which was both sepulcher and cradle, and forms them into an egg of myrrh. It takes this egg to the city of the sun and deposits it on the altar of the Sun God, thus ushering in a new era out of its own life.

During this past week, Holy Week, Christ, the great Sun Spirit, walked through his last week of his human life. On the Sunday, he rode humbly into the royal city, greeted with wild enthusiasm as the king. On Monday he confronted calculating human greed and theft as he cleansed the Temple. On Tuesday he warned of the changing of the times, and battled for the hearts and minds of those who oppose him. On Wednesday Mary Magdalene anointed him with aromatic oil in anticipation of his death. By Thursday, after pouring his life and soul into bread and wine to nourish his followers forever, he was barely able to hold onto life as the fire of his love for humanity consumed the body. He was arrested and handed over by one of his own followers. Swiftly and unjustly, He was tried in both religious and secular courts, mocked, tortured and publicly and falsely executed as a common criminal. His friends bury him wrapped in balsam spices.

 

After his own crossing into the realm of death, he continues His descent. He penetrates into the underworld, releasing the dead from their chains and allowing them to rise.

Christ is the Sun Bird, the creator of time. He lives on the dew of his Father’s will. Because he is also eternal, from beyond time, everything he did in his human life and death is still ongoing. His descent into the depths of existence, in life and in death, means that these are the very places we can always find him. He is here where life becomes difficult or threatening. He is here amid all the temptations. He walks with us through all our greater and lesser deaths. He is here in the midst of all the unfairness and injustices of life. He is here in the times when our very souls may seem to have died.

He is also always here in the very depths of our own being, in the deepest core of our heart, with his power to resurrect. He is in us as the firebird, the force that consumes and un-forms the old when its time is past. He answers when, in the words of the Psalmist:

 Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD;

 Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

   to my cry for mercy.

  ….

 But with you there is forgiveness,

   so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

….

put your hope in the LORD,

   for with the LORD is unfailing love

   and with him is full redemption. (Psalm 130)

He is the phoenix force that helps us re-form ourselves anew out of the ashes.

All during Holy Week, the epistle says that the place of our heart is burning. Though we live in a cold earthly abode, there is a breath of hope that comes to us from the inside of the grave. For our hearts are burning….

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