A Good Friday One Year Ago

I quickly rushed to church after work on Friday, mind everywhere, a tense day with some tough kids. I remember coming into the dark room, sitting down by myself near the back. There were less people attending than a usual service but still enough to fill spaces. I was aware of where I was sitting, how I was sitting, who was around me, the plans for the rest of my night.

And then, like hearing the striking beauty of a melody I know so well, I was taken back. I stopped. Not just physically, but mentally. I stopped inside.

A girl took the mic, and began to talk about Jesus. But it was a different way of talking about him than I had ever heard before. She didn't speak about what to learn about him or how to live like him.

She simply spoke of him. She talked about his life. She talked about the things he did. She talked about the people he hung out with. She told stories. She spoke about the life of a man who lived on this planet, who ate and drank and slept on this earth. She talked about the ways he laughed and the ways he got angry and the times he cried. She talked about who he was.

And I suddenly felt like I was at his funeral. I felt like he was just here. She spoke like he was just here. She spoke like she knew him. She spoke like she missed him.

Her voice led me into tears. I missed him. I wanted to be with him. His loss was palpable. His loss was weighty. It permeated the room. And strangely enough his absence soon turned into what felt like his presence, sitting right next to me. The absence turned into a presence of a God who was joining me in my tears.

I remember my mind wanting to switch on and say “easy feelings, not too much now, don’t want to draw too much attention.” And then centering back on her voice. And this time my mind didn’t take over. It was too real. This time shame wouldn’t take away such a time to honor. Damn it not this time. Not when you feel like you have the living God sitting next to you, weeping right there with you. Not weeping for you, but weeping with you.

I didn’t want to be wept for. I didn’t want Jesus to have it all together and have to cry for me from some high place. I wanted him to be here, next to the earth, sitting in a chair, weeping alongside me. And that’s what it felt like. It felt like he was sitting next to me, weeping because he wanted to be with me, because he missed being gone, because he knew something of what it meant to feel alone. He knew something of what it meant to live on this earth. He knew what it meant to die on this earth.

This was a time to honor that death. This was a time to weep together over that death.

This was not a day of despair. Tears are not despair. Numbness is despair. A stone-face is despair. Having it all together is despair. Tears are hope. Tears were not the absence of God that day. They were the presence of a God I was weeping with – a God who had died in order for him to be able to sit and weep right next to me at his funeral.