Good Friday is a bookmark in time, a space constructed to re-enact the darkest moment in history. It represents the anticipation of death, of alienation, of our worst fears and the fulfillment of those fears. It serves as a canvas for us to splash our nightmares on, so we can stand back and look at them, realizing they are not as sinister as we believed. Good Friday is about a death that was not a death, a night that did not continue, despair that was not despair. It confronts us with the darkest possible scenario we could face and allows us to see it through to its very end. There, we find Jesus’ body, lifeless and frail, but on the verge of something new and unexpected.
Participating in Good Friday is an act of courage and hope, a step towards a future capable of holding light in darkness, joy in sorrow, and sacred in the profane. Sometimes we discover joy from the same source as our sorrow, and where we anticipate retribution, we receive grace. Sometimes all it takes to be rid of fear is to proceed towards it.
