After six of the last seven words from the Cross, I shared a short reflection. I quoted extensively a prayer written by Kayla Craig in her book To Light Their Way.
THE FIRST WORD: LUKE 23:32-34 “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
A few months ago I was visiting a comic book store, admiring all the valuable comics on the wall and digging through a bunch of the bins. The store was pretty empty and so the staff ended up standing around talking amongst themselves. While I was looking through old back issues of books I already had, I could hear them sharing about their life, families, and kids. Someone couldn’t wait to go on vacation and visit a place they’ve never been to while another was feeling a little nostalgic for a time when their kids were little. This staffer had, for years, brought their kids to the store and really enjoyed the time they spent together. Their kids, though, were now older and preferred to stay home or hang out with their friends. The staffer knew that this was all just a part of growing up and wasn’t trying to take it personally. But he also wished he had one more chance to have that experience again. He said, “There’s a moment when you pick up your kid not realizing that’s the last time you ever will.” Life is full of these kinds of transitions as we move into a future we’re not quite ready for. And yet when Jesus came face to face with what we do when God’s love shows up, he refused to let us define what his last moments will be. Rather, even in the midst of all the sorrow, pain, fear, and anxiety, Jesus prayed for the future he was already building for the world.
THE SECOND WORD: LUKE 22:35-43 “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
So since I started my reflections by using the words others shared, I’d like to keep that pattern going by turning to a long prayer someone else wrote. Kayla Craig is an author who regularly writes prayers and devotions for families. In her book “To Light Their Way,” she wrote something I’ve used in my own family as a way to unpack what the Cross might mean for us today. Sometimes we lessen the impact of faith by trying to reduce it to something we can understand. But there are times when other people’s words help us recognize how faith is something we experience and live with too. Kayla Craig’s poem about Good Friday begins in this way:
O Lord, we come to You on this day
To remember You –
You, who hung each star in the sky
And, too, hung upon the Cross.
O Lord, we grieve and lament
And repent of the ways we have shouted,
“Crucify Him!”
With our actions and our words
And our sins of omission and silence.
Christ, have mercy on us.
O Lord, we want to skip ahead
To Your resurrection,
For it is painful
To remember Your pain –
The torture,
The death at the hands of people in power,
The sacrifice of Your great love.
We want to turn away.
We want the storybook ending
Without any of the sorrows.
And yet it is because of Your power
And Your suffering
That we are able to dwell in a faith
Big enough to hold all the pain of the world
And we can sit in the tension
Of now and not yet.
It’s the criminals on the cross who voice what the Cross might mean. One of them chose to join with the crowd, pushing Jesus to be the kind of Messiah we want him to be. And yet, right next to him, was another who also seemed to recognize who had placed Jesus on the Cross in the first place. Trying to reduce the Cross to one thing or seeing it merely as a puzzle piece in God’s eternal plan forgets how we are part of this story too. And the role we play within Jesus’ journey to the Cross is always way bigger than we usually accept.
THE THIRD WORD: JOHN: 19:25-27 “Woman, here is your son. Here is your mother.”
The gospel according to John never officially names Jesus’ mother. We know her name is Mary but she’s primarily identified by the relationship she has with her son. John isn’t afraid of naming women since he name-dropped a bunch of them in the verses we just heard. Yet I wonder if John’s constant naming of the connection she had with Jesus as his way of showing us who our God chooses to be. Jesus knew he wouldn’t be coming down from the Cross under his own power and his mother, living in a patriarchal world, would be facing a very risky future. And while Jesus had brothers and other siblings who could step in – he refused to let others create a new future for those he loved. So, at a terrible moment when everyone wasn’t sure what the future would bring, Jesus not only gave his mom someone who could care for her but he also gave a disciple a new parent too. He promised that they, together, have a future. And that future, as the poem shares, is created by a God who knows our tomorrow doesn’t have to only be an extension of what we’re going through today. Mrs. Craig writes:
Lord, we thank You for a love that is bigger
And truer than any fairy tale,
A love that bore a violent death
So that we may truly live
And be free from the shackles of violence
And the snare of power.
THE FOURTH WORD: MATTHEW: 27:45-49 “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Now when it comes to the story of Jesus’ passion, two of the things that make it hard are: 1) how people treat Jesus and 2) how Jesus always doesn’t do what we expect. We assume Jesus’ actions are very intentional and that those choices make this awful moment understandable. But there remain bits of this story that don’t always align with a Jesus who we assume is always in control. And one of those moments is when, while on the Cross, he uttered the opening line to Psalm 22. How – if this was all part of the plan – could the Son of God claim to be forsaken? We sometimes act as if Jesus really didn’t mean what he said or, since the psalm ends in a more faithful place, Jesus was using this opening line as a symbol for the good bits at the end. But I wonder if Jesus’ decision to lament – to put worry, fear, sorrow, grief, and anxiety into real words – helps us discover just how big God’s story truly is. We might not understand why Jesus felt forsaken but we shouldn’t, I believe, assume it was pretend. Jesus really did know what it was to be abandoned by his friends and to feel as if God had left him behind. And while there are plenty of times when Jesus’ experience matches our own, we also know God made a way for Him and trust God will make a way for us too. Kayla Craig’s poem continues in this way:
O Lord, our lives are marked with suffering,
And we do our children no favors
To present the idea that grief does not exist.
We ask You to help us
On this Friday
To create a sacred space,
To show them that You,
King of heaven and earth,
Took on our pain.
And even though You were betrayed,
Mocked, maligned, mistreated,
And even murdered,
You humbled Yourself to death on a cross
So that we would know life.
O Lord, we remember Your
Trial and torture.
THE FIFTH WORD: JOHN 19:28-29 “I am thirsty.”
When the early disciples of Jesus reflected back on Jesus’ life and ministry, they often used the words from the Psalms, the prophets, and the Torah as a way to unpack what they saw and experienced. It was one of the ways they found meaning and purpose in what they went through together. But looking for some kind of scriptural proof isn’t the only way to experience Jesus’ story. We can also recognize the very human – and the very physical – reality he lived through. It’s through Jesus’ body where he lived out his story and his body, in this moment, was doing all it could to survive. And since every breath was harder than the last, his thirst – I imagine – was very real. When people heard him speak, they – rightly – looked around for something to give him. Yet what they found did very little to offer a little comfort during a moment of horror. And I wonder if the sour nature of the wine caused his lips to pucker – furthering his suffering rather than alleviating it. Choosing to make things harder rather than lead with mercy and compassion is a very big part of what people do throughout our Bible. And trusting there is a better way to be is something we’re always growing into. So in the poem I’ve been reciting from all night, it continues with:
We pray that our children
Would know Your way of love –
A love that makes a way
For all people,
That takes up the Cross.
May they know a way that chooses mercy
When faced with an enemy
A way that chooses
Sacrifice instead of comfort,
A way that chooses
Healing instead of violence,
A way that chooses
Loud love instead of hidden hate,
A way that opens their hearts
Instead of closes them shut.
THE SIXTH WORD: JOHN 19:30 “It is finished.”
And so before the rush to Easter morning and the future that shapes how we view everything that has come before and everything to be, we have the opportunity to do the very hard thing of recognizing just how long the shadow can be. Broken dreams. Unfulfilled plans. An unanswered prayer. It’s a shadow we do our best to avoid and yet it’s a place our God chooses to go to. And that’s because God isn’t done with you yet. So I’d like to end this series of reflections with the very last lines from Mrs. Craig’s poem:
O God, we ask You to hold our family
As we try to fathom love
That sacrificed on our behalf,
Willing to be betrayed
And suffer death on a cross.
Still our hearts
Let us cry as we begin to feel
The weight of this truth.
We weep for the ways violence
Still happens in our world,
And we pray for all to know
The deep and abiding love of Jesus Christ.
We wait in the darkness.
Be with us in the darkness,
O Light of the world.
Amen.