Good Friday 2014

Good Friday—2014 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? * and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? 2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; * by night as well, but I find no rest. 3 Yet you are the Holy One, * enthroned upon the praises of Israel. 4 Our forefathers put their trust in you; * they trusted, and you delivered them. 5 They cried out to you and were delivered; * they trusted in you and were not put to shame. We gather over the course of these three days to recall the stories that form the heart of our faith, the essence of the people of God. We suffer with the children of Israel who are in captivity in Babylon. We watch and wait with Jesus’s mother and his disciples as he hangs dying on the cross. We read aloud the heartbroken words of Psalm 22, and we remember today our own desolate times, the times when God seems to be absent. And we remember the times when we have acted as if God is absent. Just last week, I was introduced to a Welsh poet names R. S. Thomas, and much of Thomas’s poetry speaks to the absence of God. I’ll share with you his poem titled In Church for your reflection on this day. “In Church,” by R.S. Thomas Often I try To analyze the quality Of its silences. Is this where God hides From my searching? I have stopped to listen, After the few people have gone, To the air recomposing itself For vigil. It has waited like this Since the stones grouped themselves about it. These are the hard ribs Of a body that our prayers have failed To animate. Shadows advance From their corners to take possession Of places the light held For an hour. The bats resume Their business. The uneasiness of the pews Ceases. There is no other sound In the darkness but the sound of a man Breathing, testing his faith On emptiness, nailing his questions One by one to an untenanted cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is a day to dwell for a while with our suffering; it is a day for questions. Let us fearlessly kneel together now, nailing our questions, our emptiness, and the world’s suffering one by one to an untenanted cross.