As you prepare to commemorate Good Friday, here is a classic Michael Spencer devotion from April, 2007 on “seeing the terrible cost of our salvation.”
My mother had an unusual experience as a teenage girl. She was present at the last public hanging in the United States.
She recalled that day in the mid-1930’s very clearly. It was, she said, like a carnival. Popcorn was being sold by vendors. People were milling about and visiting. The executed man, a young African-American named Rainey Bathea, had been convicted of raping and killing an elderly woman. Of course, the crowd was entertained by the spectacle of public justice.
It would be very strange indeed, if we visited my hometown today and found people wearing the gallows around their necks. It would be bizarre to see buildings with nooses hanging from steeples. It would puzzling to go into a gathering held on the anniversary of that execution and hear people singing songs about the death of Raney Bathea.
It wouldn’t be particularly odd to find some civil rights historian looking into these events, or to find that African-Americans were aware of the day and the execution as part of their history. But to celebrate it? To sing about it with gratitude? To say that such an event should become the defining event of a community’s history? That would be very strange.Continue reading “Classic iMonk: A Good Friday Meditation”
A Series for Holy Week.
A Series for Holy Week.
A Series for Holy Week.
A Series for Holy Week.
By Chaplain Mike.
By Chaplain Mike.
A Series for Holy Week.
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