Good Friday Evening
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 
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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