I witnessed the aftermath of a grisly accident this morning. I saw a woman’s body lying in the road, a victim of a hit and run driver. When I saw the news report later in the day, I learned that it was likely not an accident but a deliberate act of violence. I also learned her name was Maria and she died at the scene. She was 75 and just taking a walk on a beautiful spring day. Good Friday will never be the same for her family. Lord, have mercy.
After I was redirected around the carnage, I continued to my destination. Each year at The Lamb Center, we walk the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. The beautiful, yet heartbreaking plaques depicting Jesus’s final hours hang throughout the center and we moved from one to another as we took turns reading scriptures describing each step of the journey. We sang O Sacred Heart Now Wounded and Were You There? and we prayed out loud together.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Although our service of remembrance was marked by the usual smiles, laughter and hugs, I was reminded as I left that many of my friends there will sleep in the woods or in their cars tonight in one of the richest counties in the nation. Lord, have mercy.
My prayer list for friends and family is particularly heavy right now and it grows longer every day. Families in crisis, unrelenting pressures and problems. A dear friend whose husband paces the house all night with crippling anxiety and panic attacks. Another friend with two out of three of her children in crisis, one far from home. Friends whose parents are failing: dementia, cancer, a stroke. Friends suffering from multiple health concerns are also job hunting. A family member in jail, a result of lifelong addiction. Aging, illness, job loss, children wandering far from the place they began. Lord, have mercy.
I listen to MSNBC and CNN incessantly in my car, horrified yet inexplicably unwilling to turn it off. I still find myself shaking my head in disbelief. The violence in the world escalating and our President is still tweeting. Friends and family members lie awake at night wondering if our country is broken beyond repair. Lord, have mercy.
Jen Hatmaker, a Christian writer/ leader who I love and respect a great deal, shared a post today that broke my heart, brought tears to my eyes and kind of made me want to fight the people who were so ugly to her earlier this year. Her experience and disillusionment this past year with what she calls the “Christian Machine” felt achingly familiar. As I sat in 
my church tonight, a safe place for which I am eternally grateful, I wept again for the anger, hurt, ugliness and division within the Church and the ongoing damage we keep perpetrating on one another in the name of religion. Lord, have mercy.
And yet, Jen said it perfectly when she described the reason why Good Friday feels somewhat comforting to her this year:
But this year, it all makes sense: the death, the anger, the man who never took his place in the machine. This day was lonely for Jesus. It was excruciating, physically and emotionally and spiritually. His people left him, even turned on him. God Himself hid his eyes. The sky went dark and life was extinguished. It was all so sad, so dead, so not yet resurrected. This was a day of tears and shock and loss and fear. It was a day of the cross, not the empty tomb.
But for those of you hunkered down on Good Friday, identifying with the loss of this day in agonizing ways, ways that you did not want to understand the cross, I am your sister this year. When too many things still feel dead and resurrection feels as unlikely and impossible as it must have on this day all those years ago, I can’t help but believe Jesus has his eye on us specifically.
Good Friday is good because it is real. Click To Tweet Good Friday feels true. Good Friday is authentic in its messy, gory, unfinished, can’t yet see the light at the end of the tunnel reality. Old ladies on walks get run over by cars, children suffer with addiction, good people sleep in their cars instead of beds, people of faith do horrible things in the name of God and aging parents suffer the indignities of old age. This world is full of hard things and we are a mess. Lord, have mercy.
With that mess on His shoulders, Jesus crawled up on the cross and said “It is finished.” He saw our heavy load and knew we couldn’t fix it. This world is just too much without Him. Our mess is just too much without Him. Resurrection and new life is impossible without Him.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Even if you can’t see it yet, Sunday is coming.
