God's Friday

Stunned silence hovered and hung in the air all around the people at the cross.
A heavy grief, like a winter's coat in August caused everyone's shoulders to slouch.
Why...
How...
What now?
More questions than answers.
More doubts than certainty.
More pain than could be processed in that moment.
But the women and other followers stood their, rooted to the ground, not being able to move.
Like a tree whose roots had sunk deep, they just gawked and gazed and occasionally let out a sigh too deep for words...but a sound of the sigh like the soul breaking apart.

Good Friday invites us into the most intimate of mystery...death.
Death of Jesus....God's son.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
He was going to overthrow the Roman rule...so some thought.
He was going to call all the peasants to revolt and revolution...so others thought.
He was going to be around forever since he was God...so others had concluded.

But this...a cross?
An tool of Roman power.
Like a missile shot;
Like a gun drawn;
Like a muscle shown.
The cross proclaimed loud and clear that there are consequences for those who try to color outside the line...there is a high penalty for playing with the Roman elites.
So with sarcastically they sketched on the cross, "The King of the Jews" so others would remember who really ruled the kingdom.  Caesar would not be overthrown so easily.
Not power.
Not prestige.
Not privilege....
But weakness.
And vulnerability.
And a willingness to face death itself.

God didn't need Jesus to die to settle a balance sheet.
God didn't want Jesus to suffer because of anger.
God wanted us to be fully alive.
God wanted us to remember and reclaim and rejoice that we are each created in God's image.
God wanted us to see Christ as a way to realize fully human and fully divine is a truth imprinted on every soul.
But we couldn't take it...still can't which is why we explain away Jesus' death like a debt settled.
Better to think in terms of transaction, because otherwise it would ask for a transformation of our whole life.
A transformation where non-violence, loving your enemies, and seeing God in all things, even suffering on a cross.
That truly would change everything, especially me.

May the God whose suffering this day changes and challenges and reclaims our whole lives embrace you and transform your heart.

Grace and peace ~