This has been an interesting journey through holy week this year – we’ve been in all our local primary schools exploring the holy week journey with the children. Several of the children have asked questions about Good Friday… and why is it called Good. It got me to wondering again, what does Good / Holy / Suffering / Long Friday mean, and what is its significance for me this year?
We see the awfulness of human beings, the distortions of power, the need to control others that is played out in the Crucifixion. We see the fear of difference, the spread of hatred, the cycle of terror that leads to Jesus being on that cross.
And yet, in that pain, we hear Jesus praying for the forgiveness of those that put him there, we hear him talking to others and still pointing the way to God’s love. We see him willing to let go, to let go of his very life here, to submit to that painful death.
Through it we see something more of God, whose love goes beyond and deeper than the mess and cruelty and power-games and institutions created by humans.
What does it mean for me, as I come towards the end of this journey through Lent without pink. As I reflected on the cross I made this clay cross, and at the bottom I filled it with little pink bits – beads & sequins – bits to remember this journey through Lent, this offering of my identity, this letting go of what I have created of me… and the encountering again of the awesomeness of the love and mercy of God.