While Jesus was on the cross, he uttered 7 brief sentences. It is common to return to these, called the Seven Words or Seven Sayings, on Good Friday. Sometime between noon and 3pm, I invite you to meditate on these Seven Words. Read through each of these slowly, and more than once.
Luke 23:34 – Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Luke 23:43 – Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
John 19:26-27 – Woman, here is your son. Here is your mother.
Matthew 27:46 + Mark 15:34 – My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
John 19:28 – I thirst.
John 19:30 – It is finished.
Luke 23:46 – Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
Consider this, that Jesus is nearly dead – he has been beaten and whipped. He has been abandoned and denied by those in his inner circle. He has been forced to carry a heavy wooden cross through town and up a hill. He has been brutally nailed to that cross, which were designed to make it painful and difficult to even breathe. So each word he pushes out of his lungs must be worth the effort.
Which saying from Jesus stands out to you? Go read that saying in its full context- read the 8-10 verses before and after the saying that has stood out to you. Who is Jesus talking to? What significance does this statement carry? How is that saying reaching across the last 2,000 years to speak to you now?
When Jesus had spoken his last, although it was the middle of the day (sometime between noon and 3pm, hence the timing of this meditation today), the sky went dark. In the temple, a curtain that had separated the laypeople from the inner sanctum of God for thousands of years was ripped in two, from top to bottom. It was God the Father saying that we are no longer separated from Him. Jesus had made a way.
I want to move your imagination now to the disciples on that strange Friday afternoon, where the sun went dark midday, where the ancient curtain was impossibly torn, where the man who they thought was the Messiah gasped his last breath. They didn’t know then that he would rise from the dead. Had they just wasted the last 3 years? Who would ever love them like Jesus had? Think also of Mary, who more than anyone had poured herself out for Jesus. Her very body had been broken to bring him into the world. What did she have to show for it now? Where were those wise men, that shiny star that promised Emmanuel, God With Us?
Sometimes, I get so caught up in Lent, in making time to pray, in fasting, in listening to Lenten devotionals, that I forget about Holy Week. I forget that Jesus was a real person who was really murdered by Empire and Religious Leaders. I forget that he had a mother who held his lifeless and battered body. I forget that he had laughed and stoked campfires and thrown nets to catch fish. I forget that he probably had calluses on his palms from sanding down wood. I forget that his words, his robes, his saliva had healed people. When I remember, I am heavy-laden with grief. Because that is what Mary and the disciples stood to lose. That is what Peter thought about as he hovered at the fringes of the crowd, burdened with shame as he remembered he and Jesus’ last exchange.
Westerners in general, but Americans in particular, are allergic to grief. In a culture that pulls us up by our bootstraps, that feeds us empty Dreams, that tells us we are sufficient in and of ourselves, that would rather split its own soul than to ever face its faults…where is there room for the messy, non-linear shape of grief? We would rather rush to pleasant platitudes and plastic smiles. We want Easter, yes, and Easter will come even if we have to drag it here prematurely.
As I write this, I want to wrap us up in a comfy place. I want to look forward with eager expectation at the jubilation Sunday will bring. I want to remind us that this Good Friday is not the end of the story for us. I am uncomfortable with naming the grief of this loss if I don’t soften it with the hope of what is to come.
But I think
It is a good practice
To sit in the lament
And not rush to the victory
Because the tomb is not yet empty, and the victory is not yet won
Not yet, not yet, not yet.
As you think about your meditation on one of Jesus’ final sayings, as you allow yourself to remember the reality of his life and death, as you find yourself at the scene of the cross in kinship with the disciples and with Mary…what grief do you need to name? What echoes around in your heart saying, “Not yet, not yet, not yet”? What victory are you waiting for? What loss are you hoping to have restored to you? In short…where do you need resurrection? How is God inviting you to wait in that need this Friday?
If you’d like to continue in your remembering of the cross, check out this video on the Stations of the Cross written by students from the School of Restorative Arts and North Park Theological Seminary : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=304KVHLrlH4&feature=youtu.be
Written by Sara Woody