waiting for resurrection
As mentioned in a number of recent posts, I've been doing an awful lot of deconstruction of my faith lately. It has been anything but easy. But as Holy Week came, I just so deeply missed the rhythms and patterns of the stories of the Passion.
At 3pm on Friday I was lying in the grass, staring at the sky and clouds and softly waving tree branches, and contemplating chaos. It was Good Friday, and 3pm is the equivalent of the "ninth hour," when Jesus is remembered as having died.
I feel like this year more than any before, I saw myself in the friends of Jesus who were left standing at the cross.
What? They must have thought. If he's dead, then who was he? Was I wrong all along? Was any of this even real?
What now? What is there to live for?
I love him. How can I ever let him go?
The story jumps so quickly to Sunday morning. But the friends and followers of Jesus had to spend Friday and Saturday trying to re-evaluate their entire lives in the midst of grief and tragedy.
Their story ended in a resurrection; perhaps mine will too.
At 3pm on Friday I was lying in the grass, staring at the sky and clouds and softly waving tree branches, and contemplating chaos. It was Good Friday, and 3pm is the equivalent of the "ninth hour," when Jesus is remembered as having died.
I feel like this year more than any before, I saw myself in the friends of Jesus who were left standing at the cross.
What? They must have thought. If he's dead, then who was he? Was I wrong all along? Was any of this even real?
What now? What is there to live for?
I love him. How can I ever let him go?
The story jumps so quickly to Sunday morning. But the friends and followers of Jesus had to spend Friday and Saturday trying to re-evaluate their entire lives in the midst of grief and tragedy.
Their story ended in a resurrection; perhaps mine will too.
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| This morning just before sunrise |
I think this is one of my problems with a Christianity that tries overly hard to be "happy" all the time. Not only does it seem detached from my own reality, but it seems to pick and choose moments to focus on in the stories that have shaped it according to the desire to be this way. Don't get me wrong, I think joy is something we can and perhaps even should have, but the reality is that many of us have enduring moments of "Fridays at the cross." Moments where everything we thought we knew has fallen apart and this present darkness threatens to snuff out all hope. I think the church does itself and its members a disservice when we too quickly jump to Sundays. Maybe resurrection is coming, and maybe it is good to hope for it, but its hard from the perspective of Friday to see or even want that. A small comfort though it may be, know that there are others with you on Friday.
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