We thoroughly lapsed Lutherans still think this day is a big deal. In Scandinavia, where no one goes to church, there are scores of performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion on this day. Takes almost three hours to do. I listen to it on Good Friday because according to the "rules" of my people, this is enough to make you a good cultural Lutheran for another year. Sung it twice when I was in the Bach Society, have seen it done live about 10 times, and have seven versions in my iTunes library. If God is really a Lutheran like we were taught as children, this ought to get me into heaven. But if you ever want to know why the Nordics have world-class engineers, are the best at industrial design, and have developed easily the greenest industrialization, remember, these people sing Bach for FUN.
This picture of my Swedish-American Lutheran preacher father was taken when I was 3 years old. So would you let this guy bury your grandmother?
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