A Day to Celebrate the Brotherhood of All People

It is Good Friday, the darkest and yet the most hopeful day in the Christian calendar. On this day when Christ was sacrificed to reconcile God and his creatures, I pray that all of us, of all faiths and without faith, will soon realize that while we are not all alike, we are brothers and sisters under God, however we understand the Being who creates and sustains life. We have been given a beautiful and bounteous world. Let us try to take better care of it and learn to respect and love all who live in it. ~~~~~ Here is the most often quoted Old Testament prophecy of the events of Good Friday. ~~~~~ Isaiah 53:7-12. "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge, My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many And made intercession for the transgressors."