We’ve all been there in one way or another. The darkness. Unsure, A little afraid. Or maybe it was worse; we had a sense of dread, maybe evil just around the corner, through the trees.
Maybe you’re somewhere in between; you can see the light off in the distance, but you’re not sure you can cross through the darkness.
By some measure it’s relative; each of us knows the doubt and pain and struggle of our own reality and experience.
The old adage, “…there’s always someone worse off than you…” might be a good way to approach this commonality of humanity.
Consider the homeless. Consider the abused. Consider those that don’t have enough to eat; maybe nothing at all to eat.
Consider those displaced by war, terrorized by violence otherwise. Consider the children, and old people, who can’t get away from the shelling, the bombs, the murderous mobs.
Imagine living in the open, in the cold, in the wet, with no real shelter from the elements.
Consider the suffering. Maybe from mental illness, or disease, or strife otherwise in your life, hounding you, not letting up.
And then consider being nailed to a cross and hung there to die.
Imagine a darkness so deep, unending, leaving your heart black with dispare, nothing to hold you back from the abyss but your pain.
And then consider the love it took to walk toward the cross, accept it. A commitment so complete that it bears witness to God’s love for us, to speak truth to the very end, until the spirit departs.
In the end, I think that’s why they call Good Friday good.
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