Tenebrae
In my Anglican days, when I was a parishioner in a very High church, the Tenebrae was sung on Maundy Thursday. I looked forward to it. The lights were extinguished one by one; and then the strepitus sounded in a tremendous clash, after the last candle in the sanctuary was extinguished. Polite Anglicans — having queued nicely for Communion — were instructed to leave the church “in disorder.” In the darkness, the parishioners would collide, trip, shove, step on each other’s toes — all in the proper liturgical spirit. One might wait the whole year for the opportunities this presented.
The symbolism is plain. Christ is no longer with us. Through the hours of Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, to the Easter Vigil when the lights come back on again, and the full Gloria is incanted — we contemplate a world in which there is no Christ; and no salvation, no absolution for our sins and indeed, no sins: only effrontery and cheek. We are abandoned to the ministrations of Nanny State, where, as Christians, we are already mocked, and may be punished unless we bow before the progressive gods (sodomy; infanticide; self-murder).
God is dead, as it were, or has gone Gnostic, and we were not made in His image. Instead, we are roadkill on the long highway. We are, according to “deep ecology,” one of ten million species on crowded Gaia, and taking more than our share of planetary resources. Shouldn’t we be ruthlessly, radically culled? The apes and dolphins and whales cannot replace us — they haven’t the capacity, after all. And so they wait patiently for the rule of Antichrist; for that reign of terror that will free them from subservience to us.
Even within quite “mainstream” Christian folds, Christ is abstraction. The Gospel Jesus is too particular — the times call rather for a generic Christ; for a Christ who will not be objectionable to the authorities; who will mind His own business and not make a scene. A democratic Christ, who will bless everyone equally, and preach multicultural homogeneity if He must preach at all. A Christ who will not have to come before Pilate, or be Crucified; who would know better. A nice Christ, who embodies the niceness we often proclaim, and has the good sense to look faithfully away whenever something might upset Him. Not man in the image of God, but God in the image of deracinated “man.” A Christ who has received a Harvard education, so that He does not talk about demons. For we are nice people, who do not want to hear about them.
And please, would this Christ not rise from the dead. For that is disruptive.