(Good) Friday

Hence, when Christ is hanged upon the cross, he makes himself subject to the curse. 

-John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (II.xvi.6)

It is not in spite of the Cross, 
in spite of its evident "weakness", in spite of human impotence and frailty, 
that He reveals Himself to us as Son of God, but particularly on the Cross.  
It is precisely the folly of the Cross which is the wisdom of God.

-Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, (II,12,D)

A youth pastor in Grand Rapids died in a house-fire alongside his infant son; a married man, a family man, a servant of Christ.  To be human is to walk daily with our finitude before us, haunting our minds, as the brevity, the brittleness, and the ephemerality that is all so part of the human condition hangs above us like a dark, imposing cloud .  But the question still lingers like a bitter odor or taste: where is God in all of this?

Where is God when it all falls apart?  Where is God when bad things happen to the righteous to the point of sheer absurdity and fleeting vanity (Ecclesiastes 8:14)?  What happens when it seems that God has all but forgotten those who seek Him, who remain waiting for the Savior who never seems to come (Lamentations 5:19-22)?  What are we to do when the very ground we walk upon feels cursed and our heart desires nothing more in its despair than to avoid the very thought of this supposedly compassionate deity (Psalm 38:13)?

Today is Good Friday, though the "Good" is surely a sardonic and sour cup to drink.  On this day a beloved friend, a respected teacher, and a mother's son was led to a humiliating and excruciating death to the sarcastic scorn of his own people and the despondent downward glances of those who trusted his words, who believed he would change the status quo, and who loved him, dearly.

What is it like, to watch your hopes and dreams and anticipations hung before you, scourged and bleeding, groaning and gasping for air.  All of us have faced those aching disappointments which tear away at the corners of the soul: the effects of a recession, the doctor's report, the crumbling of a relationship, the words whose sting still pangs, the abysmal chasm of depression which can never be quenched or filled

And death.

Here hung the one they called Lord, the epitome of humiliation, the hope of the better world to come now wallowing in a criminal's crucifixion.  What did his mother think as he called out in a coarse murmur "Woman here is your son" as he nodded his head towards the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 19:26)?  What did the disciples feel at the broken cry of "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)  How heavy was the heart of our Savior who, in the garden the night of his betrayal, who alone without comfort or consolation openly told his disciples "My soul is dolefully heavy, even to the point of death" (Matthew 26:38)?  Yes, even Jesus was grieved.

The problem with words is words bear no weight; they may be saturated with meaning but until we can truly be beckoned into that experience can we truly correlate words with a concept, a thought, or a feeling.  So we rush through the Passion of our Lord, we see it as mere symbolism and move on with our lives and never realize that the same agony which chars our hopes and dreams to ash is the same agony which a mother felt staring at her bleeding son, his friends felt as his anguish, and our Lord and Savior felt before he faced the cross our of his love for us.

Where is God when it all falls apart?  He's beside us, sharing our deepest pains with an empathy that knows all too well what it means to be human, what it means to live in a world ravaged by incompleteness and pain, and what it means to face death.

Sometimes, its all too easy to lose hope in a God who doesn't seem to listen, who seems to be high above us with the ability to change our tormented and crumbling existence but has no desire to become involved, who seems to let the world be with no rhyme or reason while those who pray and petition to him with pleading and wailing only the hear the stark silence hanging.  But hope comes on Easter morning, hope comes in the wounds of his hands, hope comes in the reconciliation of all peoples, the forgiveness of our many trespasses, and the promise of the resurrection and eternal life.  It is the hope of a God who is not impassible, impenetrable, or apathetic, but is one who relates to us, who lived and breathed among us, and suffers along side us.  It is on the cross that God reveals who he truly is; our Savior whose power is strong enough to throw off the yoke of sin from our shoulders, and yet is low enough and near enough and human enough to weep when we are weeping and be downcast when we are downcast.

I do not have answers, all I have are questions.  But I do know this; that even the in the darkest tragedy the light of Christ finds its way through, not in the grandeur of fireworks and beatific divinity, but in the compassion of one who made himself like us in order that we may not suffer our sorry state alone for He has already suffered it for us.

He died for me.  And you.  And that is why Friday is truly Good.

Pray often