During our Good Friday service tonight, the room was filled with candlelight. As the story of the last day was read, little by little, the room grew darker. Only one candle remained, a single candle next to the cross. As the final words were read, Jesus was placed in the tomb and the room went black.
In that moment, a very real darkness was present. A familiar one that I know from days gone by. It was the darkness of depression and hopelessness and grief. It was a feeling that flooded my heart when the stone rolled in front of the tomb with a pounding sound. I helped plan the service. I had read the text countless times. This is not my first Good Friday. I knew what was coming. Yet in that moment, when the finality of it hit, it was a fresh raw wound.
I know that Good Friday is hard. I know that the service is dark. I also know that it is so very necessary to walk through the pain and feel the hopelessness so that the announcement that 'He Is Risen' means so much more.
I read a blog post today by one of my faves. She is a woman that I admire and look up to. She wrote about why this Good Friday feels different. For her, this year was filled with challenges from Jesus people that she had not known before. I get that.
The number of times that I have come to a personal point of spiritual 'next' and realized that I was standing outside the norm or comfortable or safe is too many to count. In the biggest and scariest of these seasons, I have reached for others and there have been moments of feeling like I was standing on a deserted island. Other times, I have found that what I have to say is so unpopular or unwanted that I may as well quit talking.
We have been conditioned to think that when you jump in the Jesus boat, you will always have people. Sometimes, that's just not true. Sometimes your voice is prophetic and painful. Sometimes your honesty is more than people are comfortable with. Sometimes you choose to step out in a new way and those that have been walking beside you stop mid-step and watch you walk away. This hurts.
It is even more painful to hear the commentary and judgement that is lined with calls for prayer, which is really just Christian-speak for gossip. When faced with these moments of bench clearing moves, we stand alone. For me, I sit and cry and shutoff and resent alone. Not one time have I frivolously stepped out in a major faith decision. When I have chosen to leave or stay or draw a line in the sand, I have done it out of a place of hard fought prayerful listening.
Have I always done it well? No.
Have I always looked to Jesus? You bet your booty.
If you find yourself in a place that the space where you heart occupies is dark and still and depressing, Jesus knows about that, and so do I. I have stood on the darkest hills in painful struggle all while others were doubting my motives. I have wept from feelings of abandonment, from painful decisions and from loneliness. All in the name of trying to serve God.
What I want to do in this next sentence is to tell you Sunday is coming. But I can't. It's not time for that. There will be a resurrection, but it's only Friday and for now, our job is to recognize that we have to be smack in the middle of that pain. There is not an instant fix. The first disciples did not have a countdown clock for Sunday because they didn't know it was coming. And for some of us, we don't either.
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