{"id":12211,"date":"2018-03-30T10:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T15:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/?p=12211"},"modified":"2018-04-02T11:39:15","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T16:39:15","slug":"good-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/good-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\">Let us provoke one another to love and good works_ (Hebrews 10:24)<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Those words from today\u2019s New Testament reading refuse to let go.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">In the context of <strong>Good Friday<\/strong> with the Gospel reading from John 18:1-19:4, pulling back the curtain of time as it were, giving us a peek at the war between religious traditions and the love of God in Jesus, it is ever so easy to rail at Judas, Peter, Pilate and the others and somehow miss the challenge to us.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">So, let the curtains fall back into place so that we\u2019re back in our own time. What are you seeing; what are you sensing&#8230;what is God saying?<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">How often have we, in pursuit of noble_ traditions, inflicted the pain of rejection, condemning innocent ones, without even the benefit of a hearing?&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">How Jesus must sometimes sigh in anguished sorrow, at the hollow precision of rituals and traditions that are&#8230;nothing more.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Perhaps it is, pondering the fact that come Monday, we would have placed behind us the \u2018solemnity\u2019 of these days, and get back to the business of living, that the words of the writer of the letter to the Hebrews continue in a real sense, to haunt and challenge.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">What does it mean to provoke? The dictionary suggests <em>instigating, goading even pressuring<\/em>, all with the negative objective of bringing someone down: of casting him\/her into a dark and awful place.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">In the letter to the Hebrews, however, the provocation enjoined is not towards such negative ends; on the contrary, it is towards a way of being that, rooted and grounded in love, issues in those good works that have the ripple effect of impacting many&#8230;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Perhaps that\u2019s what <em>Good Friday\u2019s<\/em> message is at its core; Jesus by His very nature, <em>provoking<\/em> those who crucified Him to look beyond the worst they could do to Him, and perceive that His motivation and objective lay in His love for His Father&#8230;and for them.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">If our traditions and ritual acts this weekend, are to move beyond that, then we must truly embrace the spirit and challenge of <em>provoking<\/em> each other to love and good works. Mind you, such living may lead to the death of positions, possessions and even self but then, Jesus did warn that for anyone desirous of following Him, the cross is not optional cf. Matthew 16:24.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><em>Contributed by: Canon Georgia Jervis<\/em><br \/>\n\u271d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let us provoke one another to love and good works_ (Hebrews 10:24) &nbsp; Those words from today\u2019s New Testament reading refuse to let go.&nbsp; In the context of Good Friday with the Gospel reading from John 18:1-19:4, pulling back the curtain of time as it were, giving us a peek at the war between religious&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":12212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-message","ctfw-has-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12280,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211\/revisions\/12280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicandioceseja.org\/copy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}