Went to a Maundy Thursday service last night and experienced something I never had in a Maundy Thursday service before. While every Maundy Thursday service has ended with the extinguishing of the Christ candle, last night's was quick to light the candle again within a minute.
I'm not looking to knock this service, but the practice seemed to reveal how unwilling we are to sit with suffering. Even during a service that is meant to force us into a place where we sit with Christ's suffering, we were quick to move on to the next thing.
I don't think that Christians are meant to seek suffering for its own sake, but we are meant to be willing to face it and to sit with others in it. Our unwillingness to sit with suffering negates any credibility we have when celebrating resurrection. We cannot skip to Easter. The pain and suffering of the world will not allow us such a cheap fix. We must get to Easter the same way Christ did, by facing the pain and suffering that comes when pure love encounters a broken world.
As Good Friday begins, let us reflect on the "What if?" of Good Friday. What if Jesus had gone into the ground and had never come out? What must it have been like for those who thought the story was over and that the three years of following had been a waste? Can we sit with that uncertainty and anxiety?
1 comment:
Hey Kester, do you listen to the podcast, Radiolab? It's a great show done through WNYC. Anyway, the past show was a sermon preached in a local synagogue centered on the Akedah. It absolutely applies to today, Good Friday, even though Christ is never mentioned. Check it out here: http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2009/04/07/in-silence/
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