We Call this Friday Good
Good Friday is when we recall that even Jesus' closest disciples fled into the night and sought refuge away from the Roman and Temple authorities for fear that they, too would be arrested; faith: FAIL. Today is a day we move deeper into meditating on our need to tell God, as Jesus, hanging on the cross to pull off another miracle, save yourself and save us! No? We’re out of here! I’m not going to end up like that!!
Peter’s famous denial three times echoing Jesus’ earlier query, also three times: “Do you love me, Peter?” Peter responded then: “You know that I love you!” Now, fearful of his life, he replies “I know nothing of this man you refer to!” This person is the disciple upon whom the Church. Peter, the so-called “Rock” by Jesus, crumbles into sand at the crucifixion.
The cross is a spectacle of human folly, failure, and faithlessness. "Yet, in spite of that", as T.S. Eliot wrote, “We call this Friday good.” Its goodness lies in God’s total submission to his love for humanity in the person of Jesus. It is the goodness inherent when we willing suffer for another person, perhaps a stranger, or even an enemy. Today, we contemplate how we respond to being asked to suffer for another, or whether or not suffering (of ourselves or another) sends us scurrying into the night, renouncing God because we suffer.
“How could God allow such suffering ?” many ask and imply this is the cardinal weakness of Christianity. Perhaps the better question is “Why would God be willing to enter into our world of suffering?” The mightiness of God isn’t a lifeboat dropping out of the sky for survivors floating in a tempest; it is God falling into the water next to us to show us the way to dry land.
God with us, “Emmanuel”, means God suffering for and with us. God does not want to “save” us as much as he intends to be with us. We want to be “saved”, just as Jesus wanted to escape suffering; it's only natural. No one suggests that to follow Jesus we should seek out pain, but rather following Jesus we will enter the suffering of a suffering world with a resounding affirmation: “Yes” to being with the poor and hopeless, the excluded, imprisoned, tortured, and sick. “Yes” to the suffering of the world, and all its messiness and dysfunction. The cross’ affirmation is entering into the heart of the suffering world and walking with those who suffer to find God calling us into his embrace, arms stretched out on the cross, now embracing us in all of our horror and pain, failure, and humiliation. Today we come to the cross to be embraced by Jesus’ crucifixion and to be resurrected with The Christ.
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