I was driving to the shops Monday night to get some groceries and heard on the radio that the Broncos were playing football on Friday night. I was immediately irritated. It's Good Friday - the day that we have off to reflect on the death of Jesus Christ, and the NRL is putting on a match. At least the AFL played Thursday night.
This 'football on Friday' thing has stuck with me for the last few days, and is still no less irritating to me.
I have been thinking about why it is so annoying to me. (In fact, the football will not be on at our place Friday night - even though we are having some people over for dinner who would probably love to watch it - and may leave in order to do so!)
This is what I have worked through. Perhaps I am over-reacting? But here's my thoughts anyway.
The reason I hate this so much, is because it is treating Good Friday just like every other day. There's football every other Friday night. But it's not every other day. It's the day we remember what Jesus went through on the cross for us.
We have a public holiday for that reason.
And while I keep hearing that we live in a pluralistic society, I don't see anyone NOT taking the public holiday because they don't believe in what it stands for.
I am also very aware that Jesus Christ is increasingly being marginalised in our society and that the days we have set aside as a society to remember or honour Him are increasingly being secularised. In fact, I even heard ads for Easter Buns the other day - what, we can't say Hot Cross Buns now?
Putting on a game of football, to make money and entertain, seems to trivialise and marginalise this day - to treat it just like any other Friday.
And I wondered - why does society treat such holy days so lightly?
Then I wondered if it is because His church have treated them so lightly.
We don't seem great at finding a balance between the extremes of meaningless rituals, or absolutely no way of marking holy moments.
We will be marking it by having a meal with people who are in the community of faith made possible by the death of Jesus. We will do something different. We will cut some things out of our life for one day, so that we are reminded this is a special day.
It is not just a day like any other.
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2 comments:
That's awesome Ruth. really good. While not the biggest football fan, I do enjoy to watch the game, and I too was slightly... 'bugged' I guess would be the word, by the fact that the friday night game would be played on Good Friday.
While I never would have been able to articulate exactly what it was that annoyed me about it. I do whole heartedly agree with you.
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