Holy Friday

We quietly mark this day when, He who hung the earth upon the waters today is hung on the cross.
The Lectionary for Ordinary Radicals

We are living in solemn times and averting our eyes can never truly heal us. This is a day when the power of Love is so spent upon us, offering Love’s self to, even in death so that it may enter all our deaths and make of them Life.

Padraig O’Tuama writes, “We do not tell stories as they are, we tell them as we are”.  Let us tell the story of Good Friday from where we are in these days when we know both fear and hope, indifference and diligence at play in the world as the pandemic hangs on. Let us involve ourselves today in this story of unimaginable self-offering in Love. Let us tell this story as we are and let it call us out to all we may be in Christ.

This morning I woke again to the sound of birdsong, as clear and strong as though my window was open.  Not many songs but one, alone, then an answer, and then a bit of sparse bird conversation.  I loved its beauty and spareness.  These songs became the tent pegs of my silent prayer this morning.  They anchored me.  I hope there was a birdsong near the cross.  A wordless persistence in beauty to accompany the ugliness of crucifixion.  I woke to birdsong and to the story of this day and felt it spreading through me.  It’s part of me today and you will all have moments and emotions that are part of you too.  Let us tell this story as we are and let it call us out to be all we may be.

Imagine these words on Jesus’ lips ~

This is how I would die,
This is how I would die:
Into the love I have for you
As pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight. Rumi

Let us pause to gather into this love
All who suffer in these days
All who pour themselves out to alleviate this suffering
All who feel their lives financially precarious or devastated
The dying and the grieving
Let us recall that Jesus died into the love he has for all
And that this love enters death
That no one is left alone.
Let us on the edge of these days
And on the edge of this story terrible and wondrous
Hold one another and the world in prayer.
In this One’s name. Amen

Image Credit: Vincent van Zalinga, Unsplash