“It’s a church!” my aunt declared triumphantly. I peered into the glass, trying in vain to decipher anything that looked like a church. It was Good Friday morning, and the great “egg white reveal” was one of the many superstitions that surrounded the holiday. Cracking an egg white into a glass of water early in the morning and placing it in the sun was supposed to reveal a pattern signaling any major event to occur that year—a ship meant travel, a church meant marriage and a coffin meant death.
That particular superstition was mildly interesting to me, but on the whole I did not like Good Friday. Neither did my sister. It was a day steeped in dark tradition and superstition, shrouded in despondency and gloom. Even our mother, who generally did not follow many traditions, seemed to enter full scale into the strict religious conventions of her childhood.
The somber spirit of the day seemed to encase all of life in heavy sobriety and stifling woe. All the simple joys of regular existence—food, family activities, and favorite things, seemed smothered and buried in miserable piles of rules and restrictions. And as if the glumness were not enough the radio stations played the most mournful songs in their collections, plunging the world around us into a “day of dirge.”
In a somewhat peculiar way, the heaviness of the Good Fridays of my childhood gives me a tiny glimpse into the darkness and despondency of the bleakest day in human history—the day when the Savior of the world laid down His life on a Roman cross for the sin of humanity. The gospel accounts tell us that at noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon (Mathew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44).
But over two thousand years later, I know the rest of the story. I know that the cross and the grave were not the end. I know that darkness gave way to the resurrection power of the Light of Life.
So with no disrespect to the traditions of my mother and others, I embrace the “360 view” of Good Friday—yes, the cross, and the grave, yes the darkness and the sobriety, but oh the light and the joy, and the celebration beyond. All gravity is tempered by promise, all solemnity by joy. I will sing The Old Rugged Cross with one breath and Christ the Lord is Risen Today with the next.
Despite the sobering reality of the cross, I will enjoy food, and family and favorite things, like big, fluffy, hot cross buns studded with raisins, and glistening with a perfect sugar-baste. I will replicate them as best I can from my memory of the ones from the “bread van,” adding my own version of the original Tate & Lyle icing crosses.
I will eat my traditional salt mackerel and smoked herring, and fish with root vegetables because I like them, and because I am thankful God gave them to me as a choice. (But I will forego the fungee[i]).
I will thank God, with awareness that the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). And I will embrace, on Good Friday and every day, the peace and joy that swallowed up the darkness forever in the earth-shaking proclamation, “He is not here; He has risen, just as He said” (Matthew 28:6).
[i] Fungee in St. Vincent is a dish made from pure arrowroot starch. When cooked the starch bonds into bubbly globules that are usually served atop a layer of fish broth. In my family, and many others in the countryside, fungee was traditionally served on Good Friday.
In some other Caribbean islands what is called fungee is a dish made with cornmeal similar to Italian polenta. That dish is called cou-cou in St. Vincent and Barbados.
