Today we remember Christ’s passionate display by way of death. We remember his torturous treatment, the hearts that rejected him, and our very sin that nailed him to a wooden cross. We know that Sunday is coming – that Love wins – but today we sit, we wait, we let his suffering and pain rest heavy on our hearts. We allow his sacrifice to penetrate the corners of our souls where we often let nothing reach. He died for every detail of you.
On the cross, we find our brokenness and our healing. On the cross, we see death and life coexisting. Beginnings and endings. Mourning and joy. Ugly and beautiful. The blood and the water. The cross is both redemptive and imparts life. As we’re cleansed by his blood, we can receive divine life by drinking of him, the fountain of life.
A Good Friday Prayer
O dear Lord, what can I say to you?
Is there any word that could come from my mouth,
any thought? any sentence?
You died for me, you gave all for my sins,
you not only became man for me
but also suffered the most cruel death for me.
Is there any response?
I wish that I could find a fitting response,
but in contemplating your holy passion and death
I can only confess humbly to you
that the immensity of your divine love
makes any response seem totally inadequate.
Let me just stand and look at you.
Your body is broken, your head wounded,
your hands and feet are split open by nails,
your side is pierced.
Your dead body now rests
in the arms of your Mother.
It is all over now. It is finished.
It is fulfilled. It is accomplished.
Sweet Lord, gracious Lord,
generous Lord, forgiving Lord,
I adore you, I praise you, I thank you.
You have made all things new
through your passion and death.
Your cross has been planted in this world
as the new sign of hope.
Let me always live under your cross, O Lord,
and proclaim the hope of your cross unceasingly.
Amen.
– Prayer from Show Me the Way by Henri Nouwen, pg. 171-72
Good Friday Art: Golgotha by Edvard Munch, 1900.
