Lenten blog | March 21, 2025

Today could have been Good Friday?

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 21st:  Psalm 63:1-8; Daniel 12:1-4; and Revelation 3:1-6.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Yesterday was the Spring Equinox.  Last Friday was the full moon.  If the full moon were to occur today, then today would already be Good Friday.  Easter’s date is defined as the Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.  Easter is a moveable feast.  Christmas, on the other hand, is locked into December 25th.  Even though we have a definite date to celebrate Jesus’ birth, we have absolutely no idea what day it actually was.  However, even though Easter’s date is fluid, we do know the approximate actual date of Good Friday and Easter because these events are linked with the Jewish festival of Passover. 

Passover is a principal Jewish observance.  It remembers and celebrates God’s powerful liberation of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery.  Pharaoh was finally forced to free his slaves following the tenth plague, which was the death of all the first-born males in the land.  The only ones spared were the Hebrews who had marked their doorposts with the blood of a sacrificed lamb.  When the angel of death saw the blood of the lamb, the angel “passed over” that house and spared the first-born male.  Death, in this way, led to the new life of Israel as a free people.  It was a sort of national resurrection.

Such symbolism of national resurrection, as giving new life to the people of Israel, is present in the Hebrew Bible.   Such a national renewal is found again, for example, in Ezekiel 37’s valley of the dry bones as Israel is promised rebirth following its national defeat and exile.  God promises through the prophet that the people will be reconstituted, that they will resurrect whole after their national death.

Today’s selection from Daniel, however, is different and even unique.  It speaks of a personal resurrection from the dead:  “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”  Before this 2nd century B.C.E passage, the dead were imagined as shadows living in Sheol.  Sheol is bereft of moral connotations.  It is not a place of reward or punishment.  Rather, it is the place where the dead linger as shadows of their former lives.  With this important passage in Daniel, the concept of resurrection to new life emerges for the individual, and with it the belief of eternal reward or punishment.  Now it is not only the corporate righteousness or wickedness of the nation that is discussed.  It is the moral character of each person that is judged by God and then rewarded with either after-death blessings or punishment.

These resurrection traditions come together as Jesus dies and resurrects.  He dies as the one John the Baptist calls the “Lamb of God.”  That is the Passover lamb whose blood was used to warn off death.  Jesus’ death allows for Daniel’s promised personal resurrection. 

Lent is a season focused on the cross and grave of Jesus.  Hopefully, Lent gives us the opportunity to appreciate the mystery that Jesus’ death is the promise of our eternal life.  Whenever Good Friday falls on the calendar is dependent upon the sun and moon, but the mystery of its salvation is dependent only on the willing and loving sacrifice of Christ Jesus for one and for all. 

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.