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Best Time For The Bell To Toll.
Dr. Jarlarth Uche Opara
Jarlathuche@gmail.com
Best time for the bell to toll and the trumpet blasts, for the chariots to move, carrying souls into eternity.
Large crowd gathered. The parking lot filled to the brim like it was a Sunday Mass. Each station dramatized, stired up in the congregants feelings of pity, remorse and compassion. Following with deep attention the sequence without bating an eyelid, too rapt and focused not to be raptured if the trumpet blasts.
None remembers anything else except things that would edify their souls. No thought outside the thoughts of heaven, hell, godliness and contrition were entertained by the majority of the congregants, moving in an orderly manner while Jesus dramatized recieved his cross, crowned with thorns, fell, raised, crucified, died and buried. Drop a pin, the sound of it would be resounding for the silence that pervaded the enviroment very thick and deep.
Their minds saturated and condensed by saintly thoughts, asking at intervals the mercy of God for all their mess and misdemeanour. It was a moment of deep reflection of their previous standing in God’ principles and ordinances, putting them on the scale by their consciences, for those with consciences that are alive would be persuaded to turn into new leaves.
Good Friday! Good indeed! Even when the life of our mesiah was tortured and humiliated. When all the diginity of his humanity was dismantled, left bared with his nakedness staring at us . His shame, disgrace and death the only thing to behold.
It was good Friday in disguise , taking away our sorrows, pains , poverty, iniquities etc and giving us eternal life in return. If only the bell of death would toll, only few wouldn’t make it to heaven. From what I saw from the disposition of many in that crowd, going through the stations dramatized, their souls were singed with sorrow, repentance and contrition. If only the bell of death would toll on good Friday during the dramatization of the passion of Christ many I thump my chest would be transfigured into eternal bliss.
Walked into the church for a brief meditation after the stations of the cross dramatized, before taking my leave to return by 3.pm, the emptiness of the church scared me. So emtpy, so naked, nothing of beauty, nothing to admire bared and empty. The tabernacle where Jesus in the Eucharist stays was bared and empty. The altar that wears great and amazing decoration eliciting majestic aura before now , bared and empty.
Sitting in that emptiness, the emptiness of my life became overwhelming. So empty a life, nothing outside Jesus is valuable. The presence of Jesus in the church Auditorium its ace in the hole.
As he was reposed on Holy Thursday night, the whole church became naked and emtpy. Showing that a life without Jesus is empty no matter the flauting of material things. Empty and naked! The lesson so strong in my heart, while sitted and gazing into that empty church.
If only our mood as expressed during the dramatization of the passion of Christ would be our daily signature, focused, composed, undistracted by the flood of trivial things in our unsettling minds, our lives as Christians would be sweet and majestic.
Though lent and Holy week are gradually phasing out and the temptation of picking ones baton of normal lifestyle dropped forty days ago getting stronger. Never go back to those lifestyles already dropped during lent. Sustain the abstinance, build more on the millage of virtues cultivated and ones spiritual life would be seamless and amazing even in the valley.
Best time for the bell to toll is when the mind is so much attuned to the passion of Christ. When nothing else is attractive than the thought and feeling of love and compassion of him who died for your sake. Like that thief who gained instant mercy and acceptance into heaven , ones life would become.
This Good Friday mood, one must keep always if ones life as a Christain must be resourceful, impactful and beyond the supresssing powers of demonic and sinful manipulations.
Happy Holy Saturday!!