Good Friday

How should I commemorate this day? That was the question running through my mind last night as I sat in the Maundy Thursday service. I knew that I would be working today and unable to attend worship services and so I wondered if there was anything that I could do other than be quiet and somber for three hours. What is appropriate? What is recommended?

I was thinking about that day and about what it meant to the disciples. We tend to look at the disciples reactions backwards, as if they had foreknowledge of the events about to transpire - and, of course, they ought to have. But I was rethinking that supposition and it occurred to me that Jesus's death would have come as a serious blow to them. Aside from the fear of being arrested and the loss of a friend, Jesus's death must have really rocked their faith in everything that they'd done for the previous three years.

Imagine going about your life as if everything was perfectly fine. Not only fine, but great actually. You just celebrated a huge victory, a huge accomplishment in your life and you're really optimistic that things are finally going to take a turn for the better. A week later, your life is a shambles. You've lost the thing most dear to you. You are a fugitive from all that you know. And everything you've ever thought you knew is called into question.

A dark cloud would descend over your life. It would be hard to see the good in anything. It would be hard to distinguish between friend and foe, between truth and lies. Everything, everywhere would be gloomy. It would feel like your life was at an end and all joy had been snuffed out.

How many of us are in the midst of our dark clouds? How many of us are reeling from life altering events? How many of us are staring into our own Good Friday's?

I think of the people of Kenya. Not all of them, mind you, but those especially for whom the world has turned its back and they are lost in the black cloud. Jesus seems dead to them. Hope is gone. Judith Taussig told me of one family that she visited while in Kenya