Good Friday?

A PICTURE CAPTURES MEMORIES OF THAT TIME

This is not a picture of Mom's Sunday chicken dinner but
that's the kitchen she cooked it in and that's the table
and Don, then clockwise: Mark, Carl, myself and Donny,
peeking up at the camera.....and Mom taking the shot. Hm...
this could have been taken on a Friday. But by 1963, there
were not many good days...let alone, a Good Friday!


MEMORIES COME FORWARD WHEN BECKONED.......OR NOT....

So, Good Friday. What does this mean? I was taught that this day is to remember a day when Jesus was crucified. Apparently the good part is, He died with purpose? A sacrifice. A final sacrifice that was to atone for sin. (Good thing too, as there aren't enough animals and birds to sacrifice in present day, for sin, as was required in the Ancient Biblical Times! Or do they still do this in Israel?)God gave his only Son, an Innocent, Pure, put to death for the guilty. A wash. Jesus died for things he didn't do. The Perfect Lamb. And this day is set aside to remember that Sacrifice, the day, Jesus the Christ died.

Good Friday Remembrance was given in an Easter sermon that I actually paid attention to, in my late 20's and had become a regular at the Berean Fundamental Church in Lincoln, NE. I don't remember the sermon, the lesson taught even. I only remember the picture the sermon brought to mind.


*********************
It was a Sunday chicken dinner that Mom had prepared for all of us. My favorite memories are of Mom and her cooking. It wasn't because she was a good cook but more because she was an animated cook. She would dance or sing or goof off and her goofiness was catching.

In this memory, it was a chicken dinner and boy did she make the best fried chicken! She'd get out her favorite frying pan, turn on the radio to Sunday polka music and grab one of us kids to dance polka with, in between turning the chicken. Those were the good ole days, when Mom still laughed and seemed happy. But things would change...or this memory wouldn't have come up during an Easter Sunday sermon.

On this particular Sunday, our step-dad, Don, was home from trucking and was sober. That meant a good day and so my guard was down. I don't remember when or how it came about but I had snitched a big bite off a juicy chicken breast to claim my territory. I put it back on the platter thinking no one would want that juicy tidbit with it's big chunk missing. Well, before we even got to sit down to eat, Don noticed the damage. He claimed personal offense that someone had taken a chunk out of his special piece of chicken! He then demanded from myself and two of my brothers that the guilty party confess.

I didn't know it was his chicken, for if I had, I never would have touched it! Now I was in for it and oh how I didn't want to have to go downstairs! I nearly peed my pants I was so scared and so I blurted out that my brother did it! Yes, that's right, Carl ate that piece of chicken and as I said it, I could see him cringe and try to disappear as he whimpered back that he did not eat ANY chicken. I remember that look of surprise and deep pain in his eyes and that stabbed me deeper than my fear of Don's beating. Why Don beat Carl more often that Mark and I, is still a mystery. And even though I was a mite myself, I knew that Carl wasn't holding up well and....well, knowing he was going to suffer another of Don's beatings made me regret my lie.

I have often, in the years since, wondered if Don had witnessed my act when he instructed me to turn to my little brother and beat him for eating his special piece of chicken. Oh, no...me?!!! I begged not to and even volunteered to go downstairs, but to no avail. As I beat on my brother, innocent of the very act I commited, I sobbed as hard as he was sobbing. But I never confessed....until years later...and.. now.
********************


A few years back, I sat in a garage in Utica, NE with those two brothers and confessed much that had darkened my heart during those early years. I remember Carl telling me as I revealed it was me who ate that piece of chicken, that he had no recollection of that particular memory. He did not remember...but then, he didn't need to, he was innocent.

I was rebaptized in that Berean Church, just after my daughter was born, and walked a stronger Christian walk then I had after baptism at 13. Sermon and memory combinations were very pivital to my understanding of God. They still are. Though now I read the Bible more than I hear a sermon. Unless one wants to count the daily life sermons that, if I'm paying attention, spark a memory and then link a picture and lesson learned..or needing to learn!

So today I will remember. I will remember that Jesus took on all that I've done, do and will do. He also took on what Don had done, is doing and will do. Jesus suffered a beating from the guilty and He asked that I/we be forgiven for doing what He had not done. And then He remembers it no more...like Carl who, to me, seems to have forgiven me by not remembering.

I was haunted by much that Don did to myself and my brothers, especially Carl...but that's a story for another day. Now-a-days, there are moments when I digress into a black hole of whys, or like this, identifying the meaning of Good Friday with that Sunday Fried Chicken memory....and, yet, over the years I've discovered a patient God, Whom has blessed me with tools to transform myself, one day at a time. This God also taught me memories can heal and teach and not be so full of shadows. Today I will try to put to death the shadows and look forward to a rising hope that all will be forgiven, to a time of new beginnings.

TODAY I'LL TAKE A PICTURE THAT CAPTURES THE MEMORY THERE IN AND FREEZES TIME.