A VERY LONG (GOOD) FRIDAY

Years ago I heard Tony Campolo – pastor, author, public speaker – tell of a Good Friday “Preach Off” of which he was a part. He said that after he was finished with his sermon, he felt mighty proud. I am sure he was justified in this regard. But then, he said, the Senior Pastor got up and told Tony he hadn’t heard anything yet. The Pastor got into the pulpit and started: “It’s Friday but Easter’s coming!” He kept repeating that phrase over and over again getting louder each time. And he didn’t need to say more.

Well, for you and me, it’s still Friday and it’s going to be a long time before we can ever refer to it as a “good” Friday. Easter, resurrection, new life is a long, perhaps a very long way off no matter what the politicians are telling us. I believe the experts: the medical professionals. I also live with a nurse who truly understands what is going on. We’re all suffering in one way or another and we don’t like it.

For thousands and for thousands more to come, this Friday-of-our-lives has resulted and will result in death. For others it meant and means real physical suffering and disability, even permanent. For the vast majority of us it has been nothing more, at least so far, than a great personal inconvenience. We can’t go where we want to go or do what we want to do like we used to. Some insist they have a constitutional right to do so and are acting accordingly and, in the process, trampling on the rights of the rest of us who are trying to stay safe. That is sad, and if I may say so, selfish.

That First Friday only became Good after the Resurrection. But it took a long, long time for the world to understand just what that Good was and is all about, namely new life, a new life because of a new way of living, living in love and service to others rather than in love and service primarily, and sometimes, only to self. This Friday will only become Good for us when we learn or re-learn that lesson again. It will be tragedy if we do not.

I would not call this pandemic an act of God’s providence. God doesn’t work that way. But it might, could, should be providential. We, individually and collectively, are being given time to take a serious look at our lives, at what is truly important and what is not. It is a time to reflect on our abundant blessing most of which we have simply either taken for granted or, sadly, believe we deserve, which we don’t.

The time will come, we know not when, when things will be back to normal. Unless we learn nothing, it will be a new normal. If we use this time well, leave politics out of it and allow our common humanity and interdependence to show us the way. When the time comes when we are able to press that re-set button for our lives, we will know what is truly important and what is not. It is only then when resurrection and a new way of living for us individually and as a world will take place. There is always resurrection. What it will look like is in our hands. What we know for certain as believers is that it’s Friday but Sunday’s coming!