The 45th word in my Lent lexicon is:
DEATH.
In many ways it sums up the essence of Good Friday, the day compels us to look death in the face with all the pain and suffering that brings. At Office of Readings on Good Friday we sing the Lamentations of the Jeremiah. This morning I was struck by their opening lines:
“All of you who pass this way, look and see, is any sorrow like the sorrow that afflicts me?”
It perfectly sums up Good Friday, especially in such hard and uncertain times when we all carry so much suffering and when our society often seems determined to choose death over life. In such times the cross is the only place that can hold our suffering and our fear of death.
Yet, in Lauds I found the Lamentations were given a new and broader perspective by these verses from the Byzantine liturgy:
“How can you die, Christ our Life?
How can you lie in the tomb?
By your death you will destroy the power of death,
And you will raise the dead from their tombs.”
They echo the heart breaking sorrow of Jeremiah, giving us a place to acknowledge our own heartbreak and suffering. Yet, they also carry us beyond that. They point out that our faith doesn’t stop at the cross. The cruel death of the Cross is a staging post on our journey to new life in the resurrection.
They remind us that the Christ who lay in the tomb is already risen. He is with us in the sufferings and uncertainties of our times and will lead us through that to the new life that his resurrection promises.
As we face death before the cross this Good Friday where are you inspired by the hope of the new life Christ promises?
