The tragedy and triumph of the cross.:

A county town's Good Friday.

The local bike club have their compound at the end of a country laneway. They were preparing for a 'run' this Easter weekend. Harley after Harley roared past house by house, street by street, straddled by a heavily tattooed male, greying, balding and overweight, his bike "colours" flying from the "mast" of his battered leather vest. I thought of Jesus and his disciples and reflected how much more they were like these outlaws than those who were gathering, this morning, in churches all around this typical Australian country town.

Jerusalem must have been insulted by the triumphal entry, the Galileans must have looked so 'working-class', so rag tag Hicksville, so undesirable. Who was this Galilean Messiah? What did he have to offer to the pride and power of Jerusalem?

Who could believe in a "country Christ"?

He didn't sound like the Messiah, he didn't look like the Messiah, his followers were the dead-ends of society: tax collectors, fishermen, publicans and prostitutes.

Surely not!

No, this Jesus did not fit into Israel's expectation of the Christ.

No, not at all.

I thought of the politics of Herod, the Power of Pilate, the piety of Caiaphas and all the promises and prophecies that must have echoed through the tents of the Galileans as they camped on the Mount of Olives desperately praying that Jesus and his twelve rednecks would mount an insurrection against all the graft and corruption of Jerusalem.

Would Jesus deliver them from the Romans.

Would Jesus be their Messiah?

Thank God for the bikies. I saw God in leather this morning, astride a Harley, the townsfolk turning their heads in disgust, shielding their young sons and daughters from the disease.

Jesus, the unexpected God, the unrecognisable God.

Jesus, the Messiah of grace and love,

not the messenger of piety and power.

Religion choses to crown itself.

The cross is prepared. He is crucified today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow as politics, power and piety demand God to submit.

Thank God for his stubborn refusal to be anything else but unconditional.