You, O God,
have promised to be faithful.
Good Friday has come once again,
and now this silent night presses down hard on us —
we who have suffered much this past year.
Our weary eyes scan the familiar Scriptures,
read the names of Pilate, Peter and all the rest,
and for a moment, hope flares like a lit candle.
Might this reading end differently?
Might humans do justice with kindness and humility?
We turn the page in our Bible.
It is the same as it was before.
As sure as gravity,
Jesus is pulled to the cross to die.
Sin has inertia.
It is resistant to change and fundamentally the same.
The soldiers at Golgotha have become rioters in the Capitol.
The weeping women at the cross are now Asian Americans
and many others in like grief,
mourning the murdered in mass shootings.
We may have new names for our transgressions,
like racialized misogyny and white supremacy,
but the same sin still crouches and lies in wait.
The ancient, ravenous, roaring lies still devore their prey.
We, like sheep, have all gone astray.
Then, a child we didn’t know was paying attention, asks:
“Why is this Friday good”?
It is here in this moment, O God,
that something sticks in our throats.
And turning to the beginning of our Bible,
we cling to our confession of hope —
There was evening, and there was morning.
There was chaos and then order.
All that was created was good and very good.
So shall it be again.
So shall the poor eat and be satisfied.
People now counting their ribs
shall feast at the banquet table.
So shall death-dealing powers crumble,
haughty rulers made to shut their mouths and, with heads bowed,
join all families of the nations in praise of you.
For Jesus, rejected and despised,
one of suffering, acquainted with sorrow,
was exalted and lifted up,
so that the world turned upside down.
So shall it be turned upside down again.
Sin has an inertia all its own.
In the days to come there is much work to do,
if we are to become a force for the good,
like the elders and ancestors,
saints who did not grow weary of well-doing,
and provoked one another to love and good trouble,
we must pray, protest, organize and sing.
Yet, the good of this night is not by our own doing.
It by grace that there shall again be joy in the morning.
For you have promised to be faithful.
You, O God.
Amen.
