At 3 p.m. on Friday, April 7, 2023, if you listen close enough, you can hear the church bells ring around the city of Athens. They ring to celebrate the Holy Week, which is the foundation of the Christian faith. Good Friday is a day of reverence and mourning to remember the ultimate sacrifice that the savior, Jesus Christ, gave — his life.

“The whole message, the whole theology of the church, is that we are Easter people. We are the people of the resurrection,” Athens First United Methodist Church Pastor Kenny Baskins said.

It was on Good Friday 2,000 years ago that Jesus of Nazareth gave his life and died the most gruesome and painful death anyone at the time could die from, the cross. The cross at Athens First United Methodist Church was shrouded with a black veil on April 7 in reverence for Good Friday.

The black veil will stay up through Saturday, otherwise known as “Holy Saturday,” and be replaced with a white veil on Sunday. The white veil represents Jesus’ resurrection and that he is no longer in the grave.

On Sunday, thousands of people in the Limestone County area of Christian faith will gather together to celebrate Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday.

“Jesus died on Good Friday, and he died for the sins, not for anything that he had committed, but for all the sins of humanity,” Pastor Baskins said. “We do not serve a God who is dead. We serve a God who is risen and who has promised to come back and receive his own unto himself. That’s the good news. Jesus says ‘I will not forever forsake you.’”