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Welcome to a unique "Good Friday" service this evening at 7:00 PM.
For the past fifty years of my life in ministry, we were accustomed to commemorating the "7 last words from the Cross" in the general mood of traditional Christianity as a remembrance of the "shadows" of the events leading up to and culminating in the death of Jesus. When we held "tenebrae" (shadows) prayer services on Good Friday at Unity, we even extinguished seven candles -- one for each "word" (saying) of Jesus from the cross in the chronological order that theologians have placed these words, to symbolize the gradual demise of Jesus at the hands of human ignorance and cruelty. All this has felt culturally appropriate and therefore comforting, somehow.
In preparing for this evening's service in prayer, I began to see these seven words in a new way: as a sevenfold progressive enlightenment by the Christ consciousness:
In the darkening shadows, the Christ Light increases --
Light comes with forgiveness.
Light comes with expanding consciousness in the present.
Light comes with unconditional love.
Light comes with awareness of the Infinite Presence.
Light comes with the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
Light comes with the recognition of spiritual completion.
Light comes with letting go and letting God.
In the midst of appearances of darkening shadows around us, let us be centered together in the celebration of the increasing Light and everlasting Life of the Christ consciousness in every receptive mind and heart.
"Even when I walk through a dark valley, I fear no harm for you are at my side..." (Psalm 23, New American Bible).
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