I should say something on Good Friday, right? After all, I’m a card-carrying bible-basher, a signed up member of the God Squad. I’m “one of them Christians”. Since I was old enough to talk and walk, I’ve been – in my own fickle and faltering way – trying to talk the talk and walk the walk of a follower of Jesus. And Easter? That’s peak season for anyone who loves God and has been heart-captured by the Christian gospel. I should be on a spiritual “high”. I should have spent all of Lent deep in prayer and fasting. I should be as close to God as I’ve ever been. Move over Theresa: there’s a new Saint in town.
But, friends, that ain’t the reality. Not for me, not this year anyway. It worries me sometimes that as a relatively visible leader in our little church – people see me up front leading worship and preaching – those who don’t know me that well in church assume I live that sort of life. That I’m always “on”. That my private life matches up to my public presentation. Of course, those who know me well are under no such illusions.
The truth is, Lent has been a complete wash out for me. I started it with good intentions – I’ll fast every Wednesday, start a prayer meeting on Wednesday mornings, and make it a season of really “pressing in” (there’s one for your Charismatic bingo card). But life took over. Work was stressful. I have an ill-advised and increasing number of children who, notwithstanding my occasional cute Facebook posts, are usually not lined up perfectly like the Von Trapps.
Roxy’s pregnant and, as miraculous and glorious as that whole process is, even fourth time around, it’s particularly unsettling this time because it’s pushing us to consider moving house, and one thing you need to know about me is I hate change. I like my comfortable and familiar foundations. And all of a sudden I’m thinking about someone else tending to my garden; someone else’s family sitting in my livingroom; someone else marking their kids’ heights on the doorframe of my kitchen cupboard.
So this Lent I’ve been distracted. I more or less stuck to my Lenten vows (allowing myself one break whilst on holiday, comforted by a Catholic pal of mine who used to remind me that “Jesus stumbled three times on the way to the cross, so…”) but it was more ritual and rule keeping than empowered and life-giving. More just “not eating today” as opposed to “fasting and praying today”.
Rather than coming to Easter fit to burst with spiritual energy and fresh life, I’m actually in a place of feeling quite shaken up and insecure, in a sense. Not insecure personally – I am, mercifully, not someone usually troubled by self-doubt. But insecure in the sense that foundational things in my life have been shaken. I’ve mentioned the possible house move. That’s unsettling. I had a couple of really stressful weeks at work where my professional confidence (and perhaps competence) was knocked a little. That’s unsettling. Our youngest had a health and safety incident in the house – she’s absolutely fine, just one of those freak accident near-misses that keep you awake as a parent. That was unsettling. It’s been a tough season in church, saying goodbye to some people who moved on, trying to plug gaps and be there for people, trying to set an example and cast a vision and lead well whilst spinning all the plates that need to keep spinning in our own lives. It’s not been easy.
And so, on Good Friday morning I’m not really, if I’m honest, at the peak of my spiritual powers. I’m distracted, unsettled, mind-occupied, overburdened and lacking much margin for reflection. Disappointed, in a way. With myself – maybe I could have made more of it this year, done more with this season. Frustrated. Some big ideas, hopes and plans I had aren’t coming to pass.
And as I sit and reflect on Good Friday I realise that, though on a different scale, that’s not a million miles away from how Jesus’ friends were feeling around this time. They were disappointed. Their Messiah hadn’t ushered in the overthrow of the Romans, far from it: He was a prisoner in their custody and about to be executed at their hands. And they, His followers, hadn’t arisen as a revolutionary force for good, they had scattered at the first sign of trouble like the cowards they always feared they truly were. They’d staked all their hopes, invested their prime years and the entirety of their credibility on the God-man Jesus and there he was hanging on a cross – every bit a man, nothing like a God.
There are two things that strike me on this Good Friday morning.
The first is this: the way things seem in the moment is not always how things will be seen in the end. As the disciples mourned that Jesus was being killed by the Romans rather than overthrowing them, they didn’t realise that in that very moment King Jesus was overthrowing not just the empire of Rome but the power of death itself. As the disciples wept tears of grief as their friend died as a victim of injustice and cruelty on a cross he didn’t deserve, they didn’t realise that the victim was The Victor, that His undeserved death was their undeserved salvation, that the cross that took His life was the means by which God would give them life eternal. God has previous on this. He has a track record of bringing His Greatest Hits out of our darkest hour. His light shines brightest when the darkness is at its deepest. As Paul taught, His power is perfected in our weaknesses. As Hosea reminds us, He turns the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope. So on Good Friday I remember that in difficult moments, stressful days, hard weeks and unsettling times, God is surely at work – working all things together for the good of those who love Him.
The second thing that strikes me this Easter is the reminder that Jesus didn’t come for us at our best, but at our worst. He didn’t die for the picture perfect but for the bruised and the broken. He died in place of His friends in full knowledge that they had rejected Him and abandoned Him. As the Good Book says, it was when we were still sinners that He died for us. Though we are faithless, He is faithful. Perhaps Easter weekend is a time to remember that it’s never been about our faithfulness, our obedience, our saintliness. It’s never been about our Spiritual High. When we’re at our best we can be tempted to forget our poverty before the throne. But when we stumble into Easter, like I am this year, we find ourselves praying a prayer which has the explicit approval of our Lord: have mercy on me. And day after day, month after month, year after year… He does. His mercies are new every morning. And His grace is sufficient for today.
If you’ve read this far, maybe you’ll read on a couple of lines further.
I opened my bible this morning to my favourite passage when it comes to Good Friday: Isaiah 53. Written centuries before Jesus lived and died, it was a word from God which helped Jesus’ first followers, raised to memorise the Jewish scriptures, understand what they had seen and heard. It goes like this:
“He was despised and rejected.
A man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried.
It was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion.
Crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us like sheep have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”
Here’s the exchange. If He carried my weaknesses, I don’t have to carry them anymore! I can walk in His strength. If He was weighed down by my sorrow, I don’t have to be weighed down anymore. I can walk free of that weight, following Jesus who promised that his yoke is easy and his burden light. And most gloriously of all: if he was pierced, crushed, beaten, whipped for all of my shortcomings and failures, then there remains for me no condemnation, no pointing finger, no judgement and no fatherly disappointment. All of that was soaked up and satisfied on the cross. All that remains for me, before God, is love: pure, unflinching, unmitigated and unmerited love.
And that, when you think about it, is pretty good news this Friday.
