Good Friday

     Walking the hallways of a hospital. Sitting at the bedside of a loved one. Waiting at a doctor’s office for test results. Walking into a courtroom where a judge holds your loved one’s (near) future in her hands. We, too have walked our lonesome valleys. We, too have experienced a loss deeper than we believed we could bear. On this holy Friday, it feels impossibly hard to breathe the word, “Good.” Today many of us know and understand the feelings that companion this day as we live in and through it.

     This day is a vital day of our faith. It is a cornerstone. It is a sacred day that holds our story, the part of our story when dreams die and we wonder if we'll ever dream again. This day shakes us to the core every year. This year feels like no exception.  

What wondrous love is this, oh my soul….

     On this day we are mindful of suffering, of sorrow, of grief, of death. On this day we may come closest to understanding that these moments – hospital hallways, a loved one's bedside, kitchen tables, courtrooms – these individual moments are held deeply in God’s heart. Especially. Especially on this Good Friday we yearn to remember God's holding us and God's loving presence.

     Times like this I want to be any place but here, to be any time but now. Times like this I feel that I use most every muscle in my body, trying to stop myself from running screaming into the woods. Times like this I realize how I search other people’s eyes for meaning, for kindness. Times like this...

What wondrous love is this, oh my soul….

     Many of us first heard the story of Jesus' crucifixion when we were children. Each year we have carried the story with us – we have heard of Jesus gathering with his friends for one last supper, then praying in the garden. We remember hearing of his arrest, his so-called "trial," his beating. Each year we have heard more of the story - that he carried his cross to the hill and was eventually nailed to it. We barely can imagine his death. Stories told us of some of his friends witnessing most of this time with him, some even standing close by as he suffered, as he cried out and then and as he died.

What wondrous love is this, oh my soul….

     Years ago I was on a walk with a dear friend. I told her that the cross made absolutely no sense to me. I explained that it felt to me like it was a symbol of torture, brutality and murder. And she nodded in agreement. Then she told me that for her it was also something else. For her the horizontal line represented our lives, each one of us. The vertical line, she believed symbolized God’s loving presence. And in the very center, that was the meeting place of our lives and God’s presence. It is there in the meeting place, where we know more than any other time, it is there that we know that God is with us.  It is here in this moment we are most afraid, here in this place we feel all-but lost - it is here when the horizontal and vertical lines meet - it is in the touching point that God is with us.

What wondrous love is this, oh my soul….



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