The Good in Good Friday
Holy Week began last Sunday. The little girl in me remembers Catholic Palm Sunday masses filled with excitement and hope. The reminder that something big was coming. There were palms that we folded into crosses as we listened to the messages of our beloved sweet Jesus triumphantly riding into Jerusalem.
On Monday, Notre Dame caught fire. Flames raged in an inferno beneath the roof of the world’s medieval Catholic cathedral. This week I read an article that offered the idea that maybe Norte Dame burning is our modern day burning bush. That struck me deep in a place in my soul that I haven’t been in a while.
Was God trying to point a secular world back to Him?
Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Holy Monday that part of us is burning. You’re right, friend, part of us is burning. The parts of our souls that yearn for our Savior burn in ways that sometimes we can’t understand. We yearn for something deep. We feel it in the unrest and anxiousness of our souls. We spend time filling this burning with earthly things. Things that will never, ever quench the inferno inside us. I believe it’s because only our beloved sweet Jesus can quench the inferno of our souls.
On this Good Friday, my heart is heavy. It is so hard to see any good in this day. I close my eyes and I see our sweet Jesus. He was humiliated, ridiculed and mocked. He stood innocent, yet took our punishment to save us from certain death. Our sweet Jesus beaten and hung on a cross to die. I think of the cross that hung in my childhood church. It was beautiful and pristine. A symbol pointing to our sweet Savior. Death by crucifixion wasn’t beautiful or pristine. It was torturous and gruesome and horrific.
And yet, it was good.
The paradox this day holds points to something big coming.
Our Good Friday full of pain.
The pain in this day points to something big coming.
Our Silent Saturday full of waiting.
The tragedy of this day points to something big coming.
Our Easter Sunday full of the most incredible joy.
The timeline in Matthew says that right now, darkness came over all the land.
In this darkness we think about Jesus. We think about Notre Dame and our modern day burning bush. We think about the Lord pointing us back to him. Because in the end, it all just points back to Him.
On this Good Friday, we wait and we pray…
Notre Père qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié; Que ton règne vienne; Que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel. Donne-nous aujourd’hui notre pain quotidien; et pardonne-nous nos offenses comme nous pardonnons à ceux qui nous ont offensés; et ne nous induis pas en tentation, mais délivre-nous du mal, Amen.