It is Good Friday

[jody]

This weekend my thoughts will be about the greatest sacrifice anyone has made for me and the world. Jesus is lord.

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[pim]

Interesting to ponder on the fact (and it is a fact) that a body of belief and collection of worship practices developed out of the judicial execution of a convicted criminal.

No, I'm not being deliberately provocative and nor am I trying to be gratuitously offensive. As Jody says, this is Good Friday - the most solemn and most spiritually meaningful day in the Christian calendar. It is to Christians what Anzac Day is to the RSL. As a "holy day", it's bigger than Christmas. As the Bach cantata sings in his cantata for Holy Saturday (or Easter Saturday if you insist) Christ lag in Todesbanden = Christ lay in the bonds of death. Or the aria in Handel's Messiah "He was despisèd and rejected of men" which is what I'm listening to right this very second on ABC Classic FM, leading to the Easter cry of triumph "Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?"

But this is today, after 2000 years of Western Christian culture and creativity in art, poetry and music. But back then there was no Bach or Handel. The cultural heritage that Christianity gave rise to didn't exist. This is the starting point of Christianity - a guy who would have been viewed by most people as a troublemaker and a reprobate who was executed to popular acclaim. Basically they would have viewed him as a low life scum who was indeed "despisèd and rejected of men":

How did it get from there and within 60 years become such a force that it had grown to a movement with a mass following: within 60 years Nero was Emperor in distant Rome and the movement had spread there and had become so numerous that Nero could scapegoat them for the Fire of Rome. A pagan historian of the day, Tacitus, wrote disparagingly of them and reported that the number of Christians slaughtered in the persecution launched by Nero after the Fire numbered in the thousands.

So ... according to a hostile pagan source, Christianity went from a despised and executed criminal with a small band of followers, to a global movement that had spread even to Rome where they numbered in the thousands. And that within 60 years - according to non-Christian sources.

That's impressive progress! Must have had a good business model!