A few thoughts and observations on Good Friday in Australia.

This morning as I drove the 46 kilometres to Miles I was stunned by the amount of business open on Good Friday. As I drove from Chinchilla there were many industrial businesses open. I noticed men painting a sign at the golf course and another group sign writing a business in town. On my way home I noticed a person checking the railway tracks in a vehicle with those little train wheels on the front and back so they can travel on the lines. And there was the continuous stream of cars heading towards Roma for the “Easter weekend celebrations” which the town hosts.

Then it occurred to me that in recent years there are people absent from church. That may not sound very surprising; so let me explain. When I was a child there would always be plenty of fringe members who came to church on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, or on Christmas Day. But these days they don’t even come to these services. Less and less fringe members are coming, even at these special times in the church year. Christ is falling off the agenda for most people.

On the ABC this morning, I was told that the announcer was asking questions in relation to Good Friday, such as, “Are we good enough? What’s it mean to be good?” Sadly he interviewed church leaders who didn’t outlay the reality of Good Friday; i.e. none of us are good enough, we are sinners, left to our own devices we are bound to death. Jesus was the only one good enough but died for us, he was without sin but became sin for us. His death atoned for our sin, hence this dark day when God was crucified is paradoxically a good day, because we are spared the wrath of God and eternal death.

Good Friday is a day of clear and precise law gospel distinctions; i.e. our sin kills, our feeble attempts to save ourselves are but filthy rags to God. However, Jesus’ perfect obedience is given as a free but costly gift to us. It is costly because it meant the Son of God had to go to the cross so that we might be blessed unconditionally. But instead of proclaiming this central tenet of the Christian faith one minister carried on about taking Jesus off the cross, turning crucifixes into crosses; surely this is in total opposition to the reality of Good Friday – the centrality of Christendom.

Once when I was a kid I could turn the television on during Good Friday and watch a movie on the Passion, but all we see today is a bunch of advertisers passionately advertising their mammon.

It appears that a way to evaluate just where the conscience of our country is at, we can look at where and what society’s emphases might be on Good Friday. And from what I am observing, we are quickly descending, if not already descended, into rampant paganism.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

Pastor Heath Pukallus

Good Friday 2006