Gray Island good friday

The Good Friday service is at noon today. It's foggy on the island, with raw drizzle blowing in at 37 degrees. The air and the ocean are the same temperature, and almost the same color - stone cold gray.  Most the lobster fleet is staying in. The ache in my bones and fingers tell me the world is colder today than it was in the middle of winter. It doesn’t make sense, but it's true. Southeast wind at this time of year will do that. It cuts through everything.

 I wonder how many with be in church. Already a few friends and parishioners have told me they can't make it. They're teaching school or heading to the mainland for a doctor’s appointment. It's nice of them to tell me. "But I'll be there Sunday," they say. "That's the day that matters, right?"

 "Yessir," I say. That is the day that matters.

 So every year I wonder if I should keep holding onto the Good Friday service - in the middle of the day - when so few can make it. Church at noon does not fit the ways we have to live in this world these days. People are working and have other important things to do.

 The truth is that I get it, and I hold no judgement, and I'll be happy if even two or three show up. Which they will. Maybe "happy" is not the right word. It is after all, Good Friday. After almost two thousand years it's still hard to explain what's so "good" about this day without sounding preachy.  When I was a boy, all I knew was good about this day was that we did not have school.

 As a preacher who has been thinking about it - pretty hard - for almost fifty years, I suffer the never-ending annual temptation to say something new and clever and unique about this day. And every year I come up empty.  The truth is that the story we remember on this day takes my breath away every time. It will happen again this year. We'll read the story, and I'll share a few thoughts, and stay mostly out of the way.

 I'll wear my black cassock with a cross around my neck, let the silence between readings linger.  After our final prayer, we'll sing "Were You There?" The last words of the program say: The congregation departs in silence.

I'll stand at the door, just inside from the cold wind to say Goodbye - short for God Be With You - to my brothers and sisters who showed up.  "Thanks for coming," I'll say, with or without words. "I hope to see you Sunday morning."