When Friday Comes Before Sunday
Good Friday felt especially heavy for me this year. All of Holy Week has felt different, but Friday struck a particularly difficult, but appreciative cord. Good Friday has always meant a lot to me, even before I participated in a worship culture that focused on the entirety of Holy Week. I have a hard time looking past the death to the resurrection sometimes. I love Sunday, I am so grateful for Sunday but I've never been able to fully look past Friday.
Just when I struggled to identify why this year felt heavier than most, I found Jen Hatmaker's personal reflections, and in them, a piece of understanding. And a peace of understanding for that matter. While I have not felt the public backlash that she has endured this last year, I similarly feel like an outsider of the Machine. I haven't written much about my dissent with the American Church because I know it is unaccepting and even more so unwilling to listen or engage. Even now I struggle to put the right words to the thoughts and feelings swirling through my head.
This is what I will say. This year, I felt a bit more of the emotional persecution Jesus faced as he walked toward that cross. The confusion of why the people in charge were focusing more on the rules and regulations and less on the hearts of the people who found themselves breaking them. Serving and loving people you knew would sell you out and betray you in your time of need. Watching as the people who don't have anything to do with you understand you more than those who claim to be one on the same cloth. When outsiders recognize the incredulousness of the situation and the insiders continue to call for your execution. All because you are just trying to really love people. This year, my heart felt his pain more than ever before.
And also the reassurance that the religious rulers don't always get it right- that sometimes the ones who scream the loudest and look for ways to tear others down instead of build them up, the ones who are blinded by what they think is right that they can't see the one who is- sometimes they persecute the very thing that came to save them. This year I find that more comforting than ever before too.
I also have an abnormal familiarity with death. Not only have I watched as ones that I love dearly have struggled and died, but I've watched other families do it too. I know all to well what it is like to see someone you love suffering, while being unable to do enough to help. To know that the end is near and your life is about to be radically different, and still wish the end would come sooner because that means peace for a loved one. I have watched mothers sob over the bodies of their sons, so I can picture Mary at the foot of that cross, absolutely devastated, soul eviscerated, as her miracle baby is murdered by her own people. I know what it must have felt like for her friends, and the disciples to be so confused and heartbroken for not only their own loss, but also hers.
This year especially, the pain of the death on Friday is not lost on me.
And so there I stood, in the back of the church, tears streaming down my face. To feel the significance of death so much more severely and know that it was my sin that held him there. That even with full knowledge of the coming resurrection, he was so dreading what he was facing that he spent hours painstakingly bargaining with the father, and then still be willing to endure it all... this year, my heart struggles to understand that more than anything.
This morning, the tomb is empty and I will rejoice. But my heart is still at the base of that cross, staring at amazement at the lengths he was willing to go through, to give me a chance at the kingdom.
Just when I struggled to identify why this year felt heavier than most, I found Jen Hatmaker's personal reflections, and in them, a piece of understanding. And a peace of understanding for that matter. While I have not felt the public backlash that she has endured this last year, I similarly feel like an outsider of the Machine. I haven't written much about my dissent with the American Church because I know it is unaccepting and even more so unwilling to listen or engage. Even now I struggle to put the right words to the thoughts and feelings swirling through my head.
This is what I will say. This year, I felt a bit more of the emotional persecution Jesus faced as he walked toward that cross. The confusion of why the people in charge were focusing more on the rules and regulations and less on the hearts of the people who found themselves breaking them. Serving and loving people you knew would sell you out and betray you in your time of need. Watching as the people who don't have anything to do with you understand you more than those who claim to be one on the same cloth. When outsiders recognize the incredulousness of the situation and the insiders continue to call for your execution. All because you are just trying to really love people. This year, my heart felt his pain more than ever before.
And also the reassurance that the religious rulers don't always get it right- that sometimes the ones who scream the loudest and look for ways to tear others down instead of build them up, the ones who are blinded by what they think is right that they can't see the one who is- sometimes they persecute the very thing that came to save them. This year I find that more comforting than ever before too.
I also have an abnormal familiarity with death. Not only have I watched as ones that I love dearly have struggled and died, but I've watched other families do it too. I know all to well what it is like to see someone you love suffering, while being unable to do enough to help. To know that the end is near and your life is about to be radically different, and still wish the end would come sooner because that means peace for a loved one. I have watched mothers sob over the bodies of their sons, so I can picture Mary at the foot of that cross, absolutely devastated, soul eviscerated, as her miracle baby is murdered by her own people. I know what it must have felt like for her friends, and the disciples to be so confused and heartbroken for not only their own loss, but also hers.
This year especially, the pain of the death on Friday is not lost on me.
And so there I stood, in the back of the church, tears streaming down my face. To feel the significance of death so much more severely and know that it was my sin that held him there. That even with full knowledge of the coming resurrection, he was so dreading what he was facing that he spent hours painstakingly bargaining with the father, and then still be willing to endure it all... this year, my heart struggles to understand that more than anything.
This morning, the tomb is empty and I will rejoice. But my heart is still at the base of that cross, staring at amazement at the lengths he was willing to go through, to give me a chance at the kingdom.
Comments
Post a Comment