Good Friday-an hour, a message, a standard

Apr 18, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

I thought that the words of 1 Cor 13:1-7 serve the hour of Good Friday well.  A man scorned and stoned could still be about selfless sacrifice.  It is the one message that transcends all others, as profound as they may be, of love that brings kindness, instils a mysterious moment of compassion.  A man out of nowhere with no following and nothing to recommend him, sets a standard-so radical as to be revolutionary-that it endures to this day.  Love thine enemy.  Say what?  My God! What is this being asked?  To what place am I being pushed, some may ask, fervent people?  I ask, and I am not.  Well, a little fervent, on occasion because I am always awed at the grandeur of the standard.  “Father, forgive them for they know not…”  They know not.  What do I know, if anything at all?

In the first hour of Palm Sunday last, while standing on the doorstep of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Brickdam), someone approached and said something.  My response was that a ‘call must be made.’  I failed him in his hour of need.  It was the beginning of Holy Week, but when the calling to higher ground was there right before me, I was found wanting.  A better guiding hand would have been ‘surrender thy self to above, and there will be finding of self.  I didn’t say so, and that is a lost moment; not a holy one.  For in their torments, someone was responding the only way that they knew: cursing.  And there wasn’t the healing grace that should have been inside.

That fleeting encounter, all of less than 15 seconds, is mentioned here, because if that principled love (agape), which is the embodiment of the new commandment is at its fullest, then the essence of Good Friday is not lived well.  Perhaps, not at all.  I cast eyes at the world beyond Guyana.  A time of turmoil, of great darkening, rushing fears.  What will be amidst all the upheavals, the caustic words, the clash of wills?  How will I manage?  Will I, is the question on many minds, more lips?  Into thine hands I commend my spirit.

Like elsewhere the material competes with, overwhelms, the spiritual right here.  There is a time for everything under the sun.  And when all is done, it is all vanity.  We have everything, yet so many are searching for an answer to how is it that I have nothing.  I look far and I look near, and there is a common ingredient, a thread that connects.  Men have risen to the crests of achievement, have the whole world in their hands, only to discover that the loss of their souls was the price that they unknowingly paid.  Maybe if they knew that immeasurable price, it still would have been paid, thought to be a cheap one.  Amid their screams and snarls, there is the discernment that men and women cry out their anguish, but are unable and unwilling to make the shift, to chart a different path, to restart towards a new vision.  In one of the sublime passages of the Bible, Paul reminds me, reminds all of us, in 1 Corinthians 13: 1-7, that a life without the love of God, and God’s love is no life at all.  No amount of money, no concentration of power, not even the greatest of strategies from the best strategists and visionaries matters a whit.

All the logic manifested, all the wisdom owned, all the earthly power accumulated, I could have all of that, but if there is lovelessness in me, then my world is that of darkness.  It is of grimness, despite the pretense at joyfulness.  I am sitting atop of an oil barrel (billions of them) and they are worthless to me.  The poor, the widow, the afflicted in body and spirit, are thought of, and when they are held close, then that is Good Friday.  Since my essence of divine origins, and this includes the worst of the worst, then all are equal.  All must be cherished.  Let the revilers revile, for they, too, could come to their senses in due time, according to Holy Writ.

‘So, you are a king?’  More than a question, a Pontian mockery, the putdown of a Roman God of a meaningless subject.  “The words are yours.”  And these are my words.  We talk of unity.  Only love and respect could bring that to fruition.  We talk about being one, then each one of us must be ready to give one and a half.  And then some more, and a little more.  The stones came flying, and the swords and spears came out in all their sharpness, and there is the mystery and the epiphany: one bearing all these blows, carrying all these burdens, on the hard, rocky road to Calvary and salvation.  Where is the once all-conquering Roman Empire today?  Whose name is on a billion lips right now?

Good Friday is every day.  Having written it, I must represent it.  Having said it, I must live.  Having shared it, this is wished of all from number one to those without a number, because they don’t count.  Blessed Good Friday to brother and sister, to strangers and partners.  And last of all, to all friends, for there are no foes.  None whomsoever on this day, or any other day.  Let there be light, love too.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)                       

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