This doesn't seem good, but it is.

Connor was a very vocal child. By the time he was two, there wasn't much he couldn't say. He also already had a very keen sense of how he thought the world should work and didn't like it when the world decided to operate in a way contrary to his personal views on the subject.

We were near the end of a our Tenebrae Service on Good Friday and our Pastors began to strip the altar. You might be thinking...um...strip the what now? It is the point in the service where the pastor removes all the paraments (that fancy fabric that adorns the atlar), the flowers, the crosses, the Bible...anything on the altar. 

So, the church is silent, and the pastors begin to remove everything from the altar. No singing, no background organ music...dead silence as the altar is stripped bare. And, Connor starts to freak out. I'll never forget the stricken look on his face as he realized what was happening and then my very vocal two year old starts saying "Oh no, oh no. They shouldn't be doing that. This isn't good. This isn't good."

Every Tenebrae service, Connor has been captivated by the stripping of the altar. He doesn't freak out anymore, but he notices it. He notices the quiet sadness, the lack of colorful adornment, the fact that it feels anything but good. As the altar is stripped bare on Friday it feels like all hope is lost. Our God has died. All the promises made seem to have been broken. It seems like Satan has won the day. "This isn't good."

In our baptism, we too are stripped clean of our trappings, but our trappings were nothing so nice as the paraments on the altar. Instead we were covered in sin and death. These coverings were stripped away, destroyed, killed, forgotten. They have been replaced with white. The white purity of Christ. He has made us pure and holy. He has covered us in His own righteousness and this..this is good indeed. 

And so, even though I want to be really sad on Good Friday, I can never quite do it. Because I know. I know that Easter happened. I know that Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose again. He overcame death, ransomed us from our enemy, the devil, and gave us new lie in our baptism. And, I know what Sunday morning will bring. The brilliant white paraments, the lilies, the joyous chorus of He is Risen, He is Risen, Indeed. Hallelujah.