Good Friday is an ending, not a beginning. It is not a dark blur in the rear view mirror as we hurry towards Easter morning. It’s not just a dip in the road before the sun breaks out at the brow of the hill. It’s an ending. A life ends, a dream dies. A body is broken, a tomb is sealed. On the evening of Good Friday, there is no future, only past. No hope, only unfulfilled promise.
Of course, we know that Easter will come, but we need to understand that Good Friday will also come again. Next year, and the year after, and forever until that time when all things are made perfect. Not every day will be Good Friday, full of pain and sorrow, grief and death. But nor will every day be Easter Day, full of hope and new life.
As we know all too well from these past few weeks, we are vulnerable, imperfect, broken. We have endings, not just beginnings. We experience – we live – darkness as well as light. That is Good Friday. But amidst all that, one thing stands out. Our God (our God!) came to live among us; to experience everything that we experienced, including pain and suffering, hatred and death. And he did it for us.
Pain will not pass away, nor suffering, nor death itself until the end of time. But, nevertheless, God was born as one of us, in order to be able to live and then die as one of us, in order to save all of us. As we live the reality of Good Friday, especially this year, we are comforted by knowing that he lived it, too – and still does, alongside us, every painful step of the way.
The Rev. William Morris
Appointed readings for today:
