The Black Cassock: Two planks of wood

It was almost Eleven O'Clock, the parishioners from SMM's had gathered with our Anglican brothers and sisters to walk in witness to Jesus' Passion through the streets of Dovecot, Liverpool. We were heckled, we were stared at, we were given strange looks and awkward smiles by people who were passing by, and yet we held our heads upright in prayer and dignity as a crowd followed what seemed to the onlookers as two planks of wood.

The crowd follow the procession of cross, clergy and servers

Yet how strange that so many people only recognise those two planks of wood as 'another symbol' of another 'misguided bunch of people'. Well how very sad. And I mean that when I say it. How very sad that people living so close to us in the developed world do not yet know the power of Christ's death and resurrection, how sad that they are so consumed by what the world tells them to do that they are blinded from the greatest love story ever told. Since the world has become even more secular, we have allowed evil to creep into our society that we as Christians should be defending, and yet we stand so often in silence. We stand in silence as people savage the Faith with their pre-fabricated lies, we stand in silence as people are suffering on our streets, we stand in silence as innocent children are denied safety due to war, famine and abortion, we stand in silence as humankind tries to play God. And the silence is deafening. Perhaps we are just another bunch of hypocrites, if we are prepared to walk behind a cross saying 'this is what we believe in' when some of us are just too lazy or too desperate to be liked by the world to stand up and say 'hold on, wait a minute - this is wrong!' But by firmly saying we believe, by truly walking with Jesus Christ, we affirm everything that he teaches us, we affirm the clear message that comes from the Gospel. We open our hearts to the love that is He who hung on a cross and say 'yes' to God.

When I look closer at what happened on this day 2000 years ago, I can see why people call us strange. We hail as our King a man who does not wear a crown of gold but a crown of thorns. We call a man Our Lord, who is not clothed and covered in regal garments and jewels, but who is stripped naked and smeared in the spittle of those that mock Him instead of venerating Him. His hands are not burdened by an orb and sceptre, but by two bloody nails. I call this Man my God, I must be mad. No. I have never loved, no will I ever love anyone as much as Him who hung there and died a bloody death for me; me being a poor man crippled with sin. And when people call me 'mad' or criticise the faith, or any faith for that matter, the sight of those two planks of wood is the only thing that stops me from giving them a piece of my mind. We must always remember that no matter how much darkness there is in the world, it will never be enough to extinguish the smallest flame of our faith, and the burning fire of love that was lit on a hill in Jerusalem all that time ago.