Life In Death

Over here in House Of Praise, we have a tradition of not having a tradition. Given our situation, most "Christian holidays" when most churches have special events, we have none. We got no building, uni is closed on (most) public holidays, and even if we wanna do stuff like camps etc these days we just don't have very many people around. So instead, what we do this good Good Friday was we went out, hit a few hundred balls on the local driving range, support the local Chinese business by playing pool, took the van out of my garage, put a long table in there, light up a gas cooker, use the van's seats as portable couches, nicked the church's projector, and have cheapass-cook-up while laughing to Stephen Chow movies playing on the wall.

Normal church types would easily spit this out as blasphemy, not going to church on Good Friday. I disagree to start with, but I can see where they're coming from. And originally this whole thing was just a result of lazy planning on a lazy holiday anyway. I was going to just as easily say happy long weekend, with no mention of Good Friday. I didn't really think much of it. But something occurred to me while I was waiting for the meat in the hotpot to cook. I took my eyes off the screen (or wall, rather) and I saw these bunch of people sitting around in a makeshift living room eating unhygienic food, with car seats as sofa, plastic chairs, and drum thrones, and a baby sleeping in her daddy's arms in a dirty garage.

If Jesus was a Chinese-kiwi and if he hadn't died until today, wouldn't the last supper look something like this? If he was a full-on kiwi it would've been a BBQ instead of hotpot, and Temuera Morisson rather than Stephen Chow, but I'm guessing the setting would otherwise look kinda similar.

While people celebrate his death, I can't help thinking about it like this: If you're a soldier in the middle of battle, and your fellow soldier died fighting, what would you do? Yes you'd be sad, but would you keep on fighting or would you stop and cry for him? Humanly speaking you would do the latter, but I'd think your dead friend would much rather you keep on fighting. Jesus died for something, so I think the worst that I can do is stop the fight to cry for him. Yes that sounds nice, but really? I'm not sure if it would make him happy, if his death so distracts me from pursuing what he lived for. I'd like to think that our little garage-supper was a celebration of his life on a day when in our hearts we remember his death. In his death, let's celebrate his life. I'd like to think he'd be happier with that.

Of course, some who know me might cry out "Hypocrite!" That's true, I'm not always the nicest guy to be around with, definitely not the first name that comes to mind when people talk about sharing life and playing nice with everybody. I got lots of holes in my life, so much that I can't fairly say I'm celebrating his life. I will always fall far far far far short. There are things I wanted to do today that I can't do yet. But we can only do what we can. I hope one day I'll be able to do more justice to the name of Christ I represent.

Today as the world remembers his death, I remember he died to give people lives. So I guess the best way to celebrate that is to eat and laugh and celebrate these lives, mine and my mates' and everybody's, the very lives he died for.