Walking in oneness: the way of the crossCOFFEE WITH WARREN, with Warren Harbeck |
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Last year’s Good Friday Walk of the Cross, as usual, brought Cochrane churches together in a spirit of oneness. Oneness has been the watchword in Cochrane for the past several weeks. Indeed, the amazing Indigenous Arts and Culture Week we just celebrated is a real tribute to the community-building vision of our Wazin Îchinabi Ti House of Oneness. How totally fitting it is, then, that this year’s Good Friday Walk of the Cross is a beautiful example of the spirit of oneness shared among our diverse churches. Members gather at 10:00 a.m., March 29, at the corner of 1st Ave. and 2nd St. W. in downtown Cochrane, and hundreds of folks will move as one through the heart of town, praying and sharing hymns and Scripture readings, led by a cross, the symbol of their common faith in Christ. For the cross is a bridge that unites humanity, in keeping with the urging of the Apostle Paul in his Letter to the Galatians 3:26–28: There he reminds those early believers: “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” And the ultimate purpose of this oneness? To be nothing less than restored images of God, and just as God is love, as is written in 1 John 4:7–16, so are we in this world. Yes, Cochrane’s Good Friday Walk of the Cross is a vivid expression of that popular hymn: “We are one in the Spirit, We are one in the Lord…. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
© 2024 Warren Harbeck |