Loading...We are in the thick of it. This Good Friday, this deep Lent, this fasting from life (or at least from basketball for an hour or so). The church year, with all its holy days, festivals and cycles of prayer and scripture, will lead you through such times like this of quiet and darkness, if you will let it. Since you are here on this Good Friday service, I know that you are at least open to this contemplation of darkness, violence, sin, betrayal and suffering that the Lenten season leads us through.
Why do we do this? Why has the church asked us to do this for all these centuries? Why take the time to dwell upon this path of suffering and death of Jesus? Why hold ourselves back from the brightness of Easter at this time, first forcing ourselves through Lent and Holy Week?
Many people, of course, do not. They practice their faith cafeteria style, choosing only the most fun entrees and spending most of their time at the dessert table. Many will arrive at Easter this Sunday, having come straight from Christmas, through Valentine’s Day, and pausing only-so-briefly from the March Madness in order to revel in the glory of Easter’s music and pageantry. They select from the serving line the quiet beauty of Christmas and the exuberant new life of Easter, but pass on the holy waiting of Advent and the emptiness of Lent. They are religious picky eaters, seeking feel-good religious experiences and the most entertaining church programming – but unknowingly miss out on the life-giving strength and health of the whole buffet. But it has been the wisdom of the church, from early on, to regularly call us to this waiting and emptiness. Why are such things on the menu? What have Christians gained from the Good Friday’s of all those centuries?
There are lots of good, deep reasons, of course, discovered over all these centuries of practice. Let me just list some words to help you get in touch with this. Listen for your feelings as I read these to you:
- Brussels, Belgium and Paris, France
- The indictment of Bradley Hanlon on the murder of one-year-old Hannah Jane Fowler.
- Cancer, Stroke and Heart Disease
- Bigotry, hate, lies and greed
- Injustice, abuse and exploitation
- Depression, Despair, Failure
- Sickness, weakness, loneliness.
I know there are those who will not make it to church this Holy Week or Easter Sunday – for all kinds of crippling reasons and illness: They either just can’t manage it for physical reasons, or they just won’t manage it because of their illness of grief, or guilt or depression or despair. And yet these people most need their faith to help them with what is in their life in this season. They need it to help them know something very important in their bones. And that something is this: That God is with them in their dark space. They need to know in a deep way that God is God in the darkness too. That God is God of the valleys and not only the mountaintops, and that God is the God of the bitter as well as the sweet - of the Brussel sprouts as well as the chocolate cake. Of those who make it into the Sweet 16, and of those who do not.
And this Good Friday practice of dwelling with the cross and suffering and death and betrayal and violence helps us to know in our own bones the depths to which God has descended to be with us. Christmas tells us that God came to be with us. But it is Good Friday that tells to what extent God came. It’s the cross that tells us that God came to be with us completely. It is Good Friday that tells us that God descended not just into our good lives or our successful lives, but that God descended all the way into our fearful lives, our sick lives, our ignorant lives, our painful lives; even to our betraying, violent and murderous lives. We are here to declare on this Good Friday that God descended all the way to the dregs and all the way into the pit to be with us completely. That is what they need to know. That is what we need to know. And that is what we are saying at this time and in this place.
We all know someone for whom Easter, if they let it come at all, will come hard for them. We all know someone who needs Good Friday to help them know in their bones that God has come to them anyway – no matter the pain or the weakness or the betrayal or the failure. They need to know that God has already been there. They need to know that Easter is for them too – even if there will be, in their personal moment, no Alleluias or music or lilies. And if we listen to Good Friday deeply enough, and let ourselves be here for a while first - we will know that God will not abandon us in our pain or failure either. If we will eat from the whole buffet, we will know that God is just as present in the valleys as in the mountaintops. Just as present in the salad as in the steak. Just as present in the emptiness as in the fullness. Just as present at the cross as at the empty tomb.
So, no matter what you bring in your life to this Good Friday, do not rush to Easter. Go down into the valley into the depths of this Lenten season. Do not be afraid of what you will find there. Know in your bones that God has already been there – and Easter is just around the corner.
Amen
