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Good Friday: another reflection

I don’t know how to feel today.
I wasn’t sure what to expect at worship last evening, but I just knew I had to be there. To be with my community of faith and share the feast of the Lord’s Supper.
For those of you able to be there, it was a feast, wasn’t it?
A feast of bread and cup, of music, of psalms, of inspiration, reminding us that these words the words on our Lord’s lips as he died.
Which brings us to today.
I just don’t what I am supposed to feel. I am raw and the emotions are close to the surface.
At work I couldn’t concentrate, so I busied myself with cleaning up until it was time to go to church.
Noontime. I am grateful for noon worship services. The time when our Lord was on the cross, we gathered to remember.
To remember our part in all of this.
But also, to remember his love.
Were you there?
Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
And yet, I am home, having been with my people remembering and I remember that Christ was on the cross for three hours.
I don’t know what to do.
When the kids were small we started a practice on Good Friday of whispering, no electronics and quiet play/reading from noon to three. You would have thought we tortured the kids. But they remember.
They remember to honor the sacrifice. They remember the day.
Jay and I still practice the quiet. Home together we whisper in hushed reverence.
We remember together today is Good Friday, but also a hard day.
We have beautiful sunshine which just does not seem right on a day such as today.
And there it is.
In a nutshell, the contradiction.
Sunshine in the midst of grief and pain.
Good in the name of the day we remember Christ’s ultimate sacrifice.
Forgiveness in the midst of sin.
Love in the midst of great hurt.
My favorite sentence in the entire Holy Solitude book is: “To know true joy, we must know something of suffering.”
This is Good Friday, but Easter is coming.
I find it so difficult to wait.
In the waiting, the anticipation, the joy will be so much sweeter.
I’ll wallow a bit more here today in my grief.
I hear, though, there will be trumpets. They just are not here yet.
So, I stay, in my grief, pondering….

What wondrous love is this?

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