Civil War Reenactments & Good Friday

Found this article across twitter and thought that I would share it here: 

A wealthy entrepreneur I know once had a brilliant idea to buy a large plot of land and transform it into a battlefield, a war-zone where people would come stay for the weekend, lodge in barracks, drive tanks, jump out of planes, carry guns, and dress in camouflage. They would fight until the enemy was annihilated. The Nazis would lose every time, freedom would prevail, and paying customers would enjoy the spectacle.


His idea was to create a world where people could get as close to “real life” as possible through re-enacting battles from World War II. They would experience the stench of sweaty barracks and the burning fuel from the tanks. The goal would be to reproduce the exhilarating feeling one got watching Band of Brothers, only considerably more life-like.


I loved Band of Brothers. Watching it gave me pride in my country and appreciation for the men who sacrificed so much for the freedom we enjoy today. But my friend’s idea seemed a little much. I couldn’t help but compare it to the kind of Civil War reenactment that people split their sides laughing at in the movie Sweet Home Alabama.

The purpose of reenacting a battle that has already been fought and won is lost on me. Why people would devote their lives and give of their resources to relive a series of events whose outcome will not change makes no sense.


This is why I sometimes have a hard time with the events and attitudes surrounding Holy Week. Before you pick up the cat of nine tails, hear me out.
In 2004, I sat in a theatre with the rest of Christendom and stared at the massive screen portraying a ruthlessly bludgeoned Jesus. Like everyone else in the theatre, I bawled like a baby. Then it occurred to me that there was no reason to sob. The man on the screen wasn’t Jesus. It was Jim Caviezel, and his trauma wasn’t real.


While The Passion of the Christ may not have depicted the actual Jesus Christ of Nazareth who had walked that dreadful road two thousand years ago, the graphic portrayal of what he suffered for us was undoubtedly potent. The film forced me to remember the excruciating death of Jesus, undoing me for my sins while engendering gratitude for my salvation. This is the purpose of Good Friday. To remind us of the depths of our depravity, the heights of God’s love, and the lengths to which Christ went to reconcile us to God. The mourning makes the celebration sweeter.


There is a wealth of wisdom in church history. We stand on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before us, who have put two millennia worth of thought into re-presenting the Gospel within the church calendar and weekly liturgies. We do well to ruminate on the theological underpinnings of liturgical seasons, to take time to mourn our sin, repent, worship, and consecrate our hearts. Yet some take this to unhelpful extremes.


It has become popular for churches to put on Good Friday funeral-esque services to mourn the death of our Savior, complete with people dressed in full black attire, minor-key dirges, crying, and a collective depression. One service I attended centered around an actual casket. I tried fruitlessly to understand the intention behind the absurdity of having a funeral for a man who everyone knew was not dead. Nonetheless, we went along with it, sobbing as though Jesus himself was inhabiting the casket on stage. Sentimental nostalgia won the day and we all became actors in a play.


Good Friday is a powerful day of remembrance. However, Good Friday is good only because Sunday eventually comes. As Christians, we must never look at the cross without thinking of the empty grave. Jesus’ suffering is inseparable from his victorious resurrection. There is a reason that the logo for Christianity is an empty cross: he did not remain upon it, but rose again. We can mourn our sin, but we do not mourn as the world does because Jesus reigns upon His throne.


Because of the necessary tension that the cross holds with the resurrection, many people fail to realize the weight that this day carries with it. Droves of Christians reduce the death of Jesus to a holiday tradition, the precursor to hunting for eggs and eating chocolate bunnies. If we do not take time to see the cross for what it is and respond to what Christ has done in faith, then we are doing nothing more than reenacting battles from World War II. However, if we actively, worshipfully remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, our hearts will change in greater measure as each year passes. The battle has been fought and won and the story will never change. But the outcome of the story changes everything.

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