Good Friday

  Just imagine...

  A young man, more innocent than any that has ever walked this earth, praying in the garden with such intensity that his sweat was like blood, pooling on the ground, a foreshadowing of things to come, when blood when drip from the wounds in his hands and feet where the nails were callously driven by soldiers with orders to kill.

  A group of disciples, of followers, who had watched in wonder as this man had conquered every obstacle in the past three years.  With a touch he had cured blindness, with a word cast out demons, and with a prayer multiplied bread.  He moved with grace, and every eye followed his movements, as though missing one action might be missing everything.  They knew he was special--but did they know how special?

  the leaders of the temple, men deeply ensconced in power, adapted to a life of control, of ease, of comfort.  They knew their role in life, and others quaked in fear, knowing they had power to welcome and to cast out.  They quivered in the presence of Jesus, this poetic genius who thwarted their efforts to trap and detain him.  He was three steps ahead of them, and they hated him for it.  No effort, no expense was spared to cast his life into the pit.

  These three groups, and so many onlookers, clashed in the dark of night in the Garden, and then once more at the trial, and again as Jesus made his way to Golgotha.  It is hard for me to imagine a more soul crushing sight than the Savior of the world, beaten and seemingly broken, trudging those lonely steps with a cross spread across his tarnished back.  If there was no hope for him, surely there is no hope for us.

  There he hangs upon the cross, the light of the world, pierced by darkness, and his life ebbs from him, breath by breath, as the rising tide devours the beach with merciless progression.

  What is hope in the face of such a death?  What is light in a valley so deep?  What is memory when it hurts to look back and see what humanity has done to our Savior?

  It is as though darkness prevailed, as though power and might won, as though evil cannot be stopped on its way to the throne.  Even the Son of God falls prey to death's insatiable appetite.

  We could save our benediction, our end of the story, until Easter, but that would be trying to deny that we know how the story ends, which is as futile as trying to hold back that onrushing tide.  We know how the story ends--we know that the stone has been rolled away, that the women who went to the tomb in mourning came back in wonder.  We know that Mary saw Jesus in the garden, that Thomas cried out "My Lord and My God", and the bells of love tolled their victory song.  Jesus died, and was raised, that death itself might be pierced, that the air might be let from the balloon, in order that death might become simply a lurking shadow, a powerless vacuum, unable to hold those who are claimed by Christ.  Death had Christ in its hands, and rather than dancing in joy it now trembles in fear, for it has been crushed by the heel of the one who came to save.

  We cannot live Good Friday pain without remembering Easter joy, and yet we cannot pass over today, any more than we can ignore the reality of our own death.  Let us remember our sin and death, and the sacrifice of Christ, and in so doing be renewed in gratitude, wonder and awe, going forth to worship our Savior with every breath of our lives.

  Death has been swallowed up in victory.
  Where, O death, is your victory?
  Where, O death, is your sting?  (1 Cor. 15:54-55)