Holy Week is easily ignored by most Christians. Maundy Thursday and especially Good Friday are some of the least-populated services of the church year. Is it because they’re too confusing? Too sad? Too intimate? It’s easy to skip from the Palm Parade to the party Saturday night and the lilies and alleluias of Easter morning.
Yet for those of us who do attend, perhaps it is proof of our desire to draw nearer somehow to God. Any “proof” needed that this is real is the yearning we feel in our hearts as we sit in the pews.
On Good Friday, there is no winning, no victory. Instead of a short- term political victory, what we get is a divine validation of every single thing we have suffered. God in Jesus tells us that there is
no wound so shameful,
no betrayal so scathing,
no pain so searing,
no loneliness so enduring,
no exhaustion so total,
no regret so bitter,
no sadness so unending,
no fear so terrifying,
no anxiety so crippling,
no disappointment so compete,
no cross so high,
no grave so deep,
that He will not have been there before us
to mark the way back.
The women deacons are preaching on Maundy Thursday and Good
Friday. Above is an excerpt from what I’m working on as I think about how the immense pain in the world is reflected on our two of our holiest days.
See you in church.
Barbara
