Good Friday – By Another Road

Failed: A Good Friday Sermon

Preached on Good Friday, April 18, 2025 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH.

It is important that we speak plainly and honestly today. We owe that much to ourselves, and to him. There is no hiding, here. No pretty turns of phrase to evade the truth.

No, the truth of Good Friday is simply this: We failed, God.

We failed today, fully and completely. We failed to see you. We failed to understand who you are and why you created us and why you came among us and what you asked of us.

It was so simple, what you asked, but so impossible for us to accept: to love one another and to love you.

But for so many reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all, we can’t do it. We don’t do it. And instead we crucify. And instead we are crucified. We fail.

And oh, how we hate to admit it. We are so afraid of failure and shame. But somehow that fear of our own failure, that recoiling at our own limitations, is precisely what we lay upon others. We make them bleed the blood we are terrified of spilling. We make them die the death we are terrified of dying.

And so we have ended up here again, like clockwork, on another Golgotha, on that dusty hill which arises in every age, soaked with sorrow and strewn with cynicism. And we are bathed, today, in a grim, unflattering light, the sort of light that doesn’t illuminate so much as it lays bare. In the deathly light of Good Friday, every blemish and crack and wound in the body of creation is made plain in your body, Lord; your precious body, as it, too, fails.

And we see here, in Jesus, upon this hill of sorrows, that, despite all our best efforts and biggest dreams, we don’t know how avoid failure in the end, not in the world as it is, because here death consumes even our greatest successes and highest ideals. It even consumes our God.

So even if we give everything we have, like Jesus did, even if we practice peace and stay patient and never speak a hateful word, even if we do everything asked of us, still, it seems, the crucifier comes. The crucifier who is time and death and fear and fury.

Still he comes, with crosses freshly assembled to dole out. Still he comes, in his heavy boots, stomping on the harvest of our years.

And still he comes, too, this crucifier, as a strange unwelcome traveler within us, welling up as the apathy and anger and resentment of our own hearts. We are the crucifier, too, somedays, even if we wish we weren’t. We must say that plainly, too.

Because so often, on any given Friday, good or otherwise, we choose to shrug or gawk or look away as the crucified ones continue to struggle through the streets of our own Jerusalems: draped in the flags of other nations or other identities, crowned with the thorns of prejudice, bearers of the burdens we’ve been taught to sneer at or dismiss.

And if we are honest, really honest with ourselves, we’re often just relieved that it isn’t us.

And so on it goes, this passion play.

So yes, we have failed, God, and we can’t fully explain it.

But it is necessary to say it, now, because really, what else can be said at the foot of your cross? There is no worldly victory here. No positive spin. There is no sly wink or nudge you give us that this is all just for show. This is simply what it appears to be. It is the opposite of love. And you, the One who is Love, you are gone.

And that is that.

But here’s the thing about today, God (and I am afraid, almost, to say it out loud, but I must, if we are speaking plainly.) Today is your encounter with failure, too, Lord. Your acceptance of your own failure.

I’ve struggled to understand this or even put it into words, since you are eternal and unfailingly good, but I am realizing that Good Friday is nonetheless your own surrender to failure.

Because you chose not just any death, but a shameful, embarrassing, degrading death. On the Cross, we see the fullness of your failure on the world’s terms. We see how creation could not bear the weight of you, how even your blessed flesh could not bear the weight of us. How you could not draw us back from our worst impulses.

You who–ever since your hungry children stumbled out of Eden with tearful eyes–you who have been trying to teach us how to undo the curse, how to find our way home. You who have parted seas and toppled tyrants and rained bread from heaven and crossed deserts and appeared in smoke and fire, all in the hopes of helping us find you again and find ourselves again…today is the shocking day when you say, my children, I have failed, too.

Because you have come to us in every way possible. You have come as light and as fire and as word and now as a man. You have come as bread and as silence and as liberation, to show us, to show us, to show us, and still, still, still we are here again, on this dusty hill, unable to truly find each other.

No matter what you have done til now, still, the crucifer comes.

And I am sorry, Jesus seems to say with his own parched lips, out of his own deep wounds. I am sorry that this has never quite worked. I am sorry that we always seem to end up here, on these many Golgothas. Because I promise you, you were created for so much more than a world full of crosses. I have wanted to give you so much more than this.

But now, it is finished. It is finished.

On Good Friday, the saga of our long journey out of Eden is finished. It ends here, with us casting God from our garden, sending him away, weeping and hungry. It ends here.

And I realize that saying this might make us uncomfortable. Surely this is not the end of the story? We know there is more.

But it is very important, actually, that we let Good Friday be Good Friday, and nothing else. That we let it be the ending that it is.

It is necessary, I think, after our long history of death and despair, to say that this particular story, this particular mode of endless disappointment—ours and Gods—ends today.

Because perhaps we need to say goodbye here, us and God, here upon the dusty hill, upon the rubble of our failed dreams. Perhaps Jesus’ words are the most honest thing that we can say to one another today: it is finished. We tried, and it failed, but whatever this is, this world that crucifies truth, it must be finished.

Because somewhere, out beyond time and terror and the Cross, somewhere within the mysterious alchemy of love and death and failure, only there and only then is something else possible, some truly good news that is not just a new chapter in this same, sad old story, but that’s a new story altogether. A new creation altogether.

A different garden that is neither Eden nor our own, but a new world, a new life in which no one will ever be cast out.

But whatever that looks like, whatever that new thing is that might yet be revealed from the depths of the tomb, we have to come here, first. We have to look into the face of our broken Lord, who tried so hard, who came so far, who loved so deeply. And we have to let him look at us, too: we who try so hard, who have come so far, who love so deeply, and yet are as broken as we’ve always been.

And today, for now, we have to let each other go.

I am sorry, Lord. I am sorry for all that we could not be to each other in the world as it is. I am sorry this is the ending of your time with us.

But please, please let it not be the end.

Let there be some new word spoken, some gentler, more kindly light revealed. Let there be something on the other side of all this failure. Let there be something plain and honest and good that does not always get crucified.

For whatever it is, we wait.

For you, we wait.

I’m Here: A Sermon for Good friday

I preached this sermon on Good Friday, March 29th, 2024 at St. Anne Episcopal Church, West Chester, OH.

Here we are.

Here we are, at the Cross. At the place that is an ending, even if we pray that it’s not the end. It’s the day in the story that no one wants to think much about and yet that must be faced, eventually. The day that is full of dread and sorrow and pain and yet compels us in ways that are hard to explain. We are pulled in close on this day, challenged to listen and to look, challenged to stay, even if we would rather run far away, rather be anywhere else than here, in proximity to the tears and the sweat and the blood, holding vigil with a broken man as he weeps and dies. With a broken God as he weeps and dies.

We do not enjoy this observance, and yet we come, on Good Friday, because somehow we know that we must come. Not out of a sense of religious obligation or detached piety. No, we leave all of that posturing far behind us if we are actually paying attention to the story, if we are actually open to it. Out here on Golgotha, where things are brutally spare and honest, where only the wind and the rock and the bones take note of our presence, out where even temples and empires have neither sense nor safety to offer, it is something deeper than duty that draws us.

We come here because we know, in a way deeper than knowing, that this is what love requires of us. We know, somehow, that showing up, that being present, that being able to look into someone’s frightened, tired eyes–into Jesus’ frightened, tired eyes–and to simply say, “I’m here,” is the most important thing that we can do when there is nothing else left to do.

We know this because we know death all too well. We have lived it. If you have ever received that call or text that comes late in the night and you have rushed to be with someone who is gravely ill or dying, you know what I mean. You know how, as their eyes grow dim and their energy fades and their breathing changes, and then they are sleeping, and then they are slipping, and you aren’t even sure if they can hear you anymore…you know that you cannot do much of anything except say, “I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I love you. And I’m here.”

We feel helpless, then. And we are. And yet this is exactly what we need to do at such times. No big gestures, no eloquent words are necessary. Just, “I’m here.”

And so it is fitting, now, as Jesus dies, that we stop what we’re doing, that we come here from wherever we are in our lives and in our hearts. Not to fix anything or figure anything out. But simply to say to him: I’m here.

I’m here, Lord, even if we weren’t always as close as I’d hoped.

I’m here even if I never fully understood you, even if I never felt fully understood.

I’m here, even though there are a thousand questions you never answered, and a thousand more I never asked.

I’m here, even though I have doubted you, and I have doubted myself, I have doubted whether the type of love you talked about is even possible in a world as broken as this one.

I’m here, even though I cannot bear to see you like this.

I’m here, because I cannot imagine never seeing you again.

I’m here, and somehow, I pray that it is enough that I am here, to hold your hand, to look into your eyes, to show you that you are not forsaken.

I love you, and I’m here.

The strangeness of it all, is that, on this day, we are here consoling God as God dies, whereas for all the rest of our days, God has been the one drawing close to console us. Since the moment we were born, and as we grew up, and as we grew older and began to learn the cost of growing old, God has always been waiting, listening, watching, staying near. God has been ready, when we cry out in pain or fear, ready to drop everything, to come, to say, “I’m here. I’m here. I love you. I’m here. I know you don’t understand. And I can’t always fix it for you, but I’m here.”

Yet now, in the mysterious circularity of love, like children who must one day cradle their parents, it is our turn. Our turn to comfort our Creator, our Lord, our God, as he cries out and enters the darkness, enters death—the one and only place where he, being eternal, being God, has never been before. Our turn to help him feel a bit less afraid, just this once.

Our turn, now, to be the one who is strong, the one who must endure, who must bear witness, who must show up, as God has always done for us. Good Friday is our turn to offer back the gift of presence, saying, yes, God, I know. It hurts to live. And it’s scary to die. I know. But I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.

In other words, today is the day, spiritually, that we grow up, that we become the ones that he always longed for us to be. The ones who choose, in coming here, to no longer hide from death nor from pain nor from ourselves, because love compels us, above all, to show up, to stay present, no matter what. And because today, on the Cross, God, who never needed anything, who didn’t know what need felt like, now needs us.

For he has traveled from farther than forever, and the trip has taken its toll. He has been wearied and winnowed down to the bone. He has spent all he had, and he has nothing left to give over except his body, and he is willing to risk be misunderstood and despised and mocked, all for the chance to come and find you and say those words from his own lips that God has been trying to tell us for all time: I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. I love you. I’m here.

As it turns out, all he ever needed was to hear us say it back.

What He Saw: A Sermon for Good Friday

I preached this sermon on Good Friday, April 7, 2023, at Trinity Episcopal Church, Fort Wayne, IN. The lectionary text cited is the Passion Narrative according to John, in which Jesus, as he dies, says, “It is finished.“

I was not there to witness it, but I was told that shortly before my great-grandma died, many years ago, she began speaking to her own mother, long since dead—speaking to her as though she was right there in the room with her. Not mumbling in her sleep, not in a delusional state, but clearly, directly, as you might talk to anyone who has come to visit your bedside. She saw her mother’s face, and then, not too long afterwards, she died, and it was finished.

I’ve heard many similar stories about other people since then, and while I don’t really know how to explain them, they seem to suggest that as our lives ebb, like a wave pulling away from the shore, a returning wave of something makes its presence known to us—something very real and very deep. Maybe we call it a memory…or maybe we call it divine presence…or maybe, like my great-grandma, we simply call out, mother. Whatever it is, whoever it is, there is a shared sense across many cultures and generations that in our final moments, we catch a glimpse of the people and the places we have known and loved.

As they say, our life flashes before our eyes.

Just last year a medical paper was published documenting, for the very first time, how this is in fact true—how life does flash before your eyes in the end. Somewhat by chance, the brain waves of a dying man were captured by an advanced medical scanning device. The doctors noticed that in the moments both immediately before and after this person died, the portion of the brain that processes memory was activated. As his other brain waves ebbed, the gamma waves—the waves of memory and meaning—flowed. He was remembering—processing a vision, somehow—of someone or something familiar. Something lost that had come back to him in the end.

And I wonder what he saw, that unnamed man. Was it his mother’s face? Maybe the time he got lost as a child? Was it the way the sun sets over the water on a summer evening? The fragment of a half-forgotten song? The smell of baking bread or the taste of good wine? How his father used to smile at him? And I wonder, were they just memories, just impulses in the brain, or were they a response to something real, something, like my great-grandma’s mother, that was somehow truly present again in a way that no medical scanner could ever detect? Those are questions that science cannot answer, but that the heart ponders nonetheless.

Because I like to think that, whatever it was that the dying man experienced, or whatever it was that my great-grandma saw as her life slipped away, that they were not just alone with their thoughts. I want to believe that their lives and their love came back to them at the very end, like a returning wave upon the shore, a presence, a promise that even though it is finished, it still all mattered. And that nothing was lost. Not really.

And if that is true, then I also can’t help but wonder what Jesus saw in his final moments on the Cross before he said, it is finished. He who felt so alone, he who was so abandoned, so undeserving of the ending he received. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

But if it’s true that our life flashes before our eyes, that love returns to us in the end to companion us into the darkness, I wonder what he saw as his breath ebbed away.

We know, of course, he saw his mother’s face, still alive, but deadened by grief.

And maybe, as he closed his eyes, maybe he saw the time he got lost as a child, when they found him in the Temple, when everything was new and possible. Or perhaps he saw the way the sun sets on the Sea of Galilee. Or maybe he remembered the fragment of a half-forgotten song heard long ago: my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior. Maybe he remembered the smell of bread in the Upper Room.The taste of good wine at that wedding in Cana. Or how his Father smiled at him in secret, in his heart, and from beyond the cold and distant stars.

Maybe it was all of this, the sum of a life, the fragmented pieces of himself gathering back in, returning on a wave, bearing witness to the ending, bearing the memory and the presence of love, bearing the unbearable weight of loneliness until…it was finished.

And although that would be beautiful and meaningful all on its own, and although I believe that Jesus’ own life and love came back to him in the end, I don’t think that’s all there was. I don’t think that’s all he saw as he hung there, his breath crushed under the weight of the world’s brokenness.

I think we would miss something essential about who he is and what this day is about if Good Friday were the story of just another, single life flashing before someone’s dying eyes.

For the life of Jesus is the life of God, and the mind of Jesus is the mind of God, and the memory of Jesus is the memory of God, deeper and broader than any one returning wave. He holds the whole ocean of time and experience within himself. His life, his mind, his memory encompass everything, everyone, everywhere.

And so it was not just his own private memories, his own personal life that flashed before his eyes in the end, but ALL of life. All that ever was, all that ever will be. He saw all of it as he died on the Cross. He saw all of you. He saw every part of you. And through eyes blurred with tears and blood and love, he saw, as he always had, in the very beginning, that it was good. Not perfect, but very, very good.

He saw the time you got lost as a child and your parents found you.

He saw the time you got lost and nobody came looking.

He saw the way the sun sets over the lake you sat beside on a summer’s evening.

He saw the way the sun rose on the first day of the world.

He saw how your mother sang to you when you were afraid.

He saw the times you were too afraid to sing out loud. The poems you never wrote. The letters you never sent.

He saw every meal on every table. He saw every hungry belly.

He saw the consequential fruit trembling on the tree in Eden; and he saw the unnoticed wildflowers and weeds that grow on the side of the road. He saw the bouquets at every graveside, the names inscribed in stone.

He saw every creature, its life and its death, its peace and its agony, he saw every crack in the earth, every polluted river, every verdant forest, every wave of the infinite sea.

He saw every battlefield, every bomb and bullet, every needless slaughter, and he saw how our brother’s blood cries out from the ground, seeking justice.

He saw every broken heart, every tearstained face, every lash of the whip, every dream deferred, every march for peace, every backroom deal, every sacrifice and every betrayal, every sleepless night, every tick of the clock.

He saw all the times we failed, all the times we tried, all the times we made something beautiful, all the times we broke something beautiful.

He saw all the times we broke.

He saw the worst of what we have done, and the best.

He saw all of it.

All of life—all of life flashed before his eyes.

And then he said:

It is finished.

He said, it is finished, now, my beloved child, bone of my aching bone, and flesh of my wounded flesh. Finished because now I see it all, with my own living, dying eyes, everything done and left undone. Now I comprehend your finitude, your fear, how alone you feel in the vastness of creation. I see, with my own eyes, the returning wave of memory and grief, all that was lost, all that was forgotten, all that was loved; all of it is returning to me now, and it is your face I see, your face I call out to, your face I will not forget as I enter into the darkness and whatever lies beyond it.

It is finished, and I do not know where I am going, but now I see the pain and the beauty and the promise of this entire world and I hold it in my broken heart, in my fading breath, and so wherever I go now, I will carry you all with me. Nothing is lost. Not really.

So let us rest, now. It is finished. For I see, in the end, what was always the only important thing to see: that I love you, all that you are, all that you are not, with the ferocity and the depth and the power and the mystery of the endless ocean, and if I can, I will return it all to you, I will bring it all back to you, I will make it whole again, somehow, someday.

For all of life—mine, and yours, and ours—has flashed before my eyes, and thus I have drawn all things to myself.

It is finished.

…

And then the wave breaks on the shore.

And he is gone.

And, for today, there is nothing else that can be said.

Parting Words: A Sermon for Good Friday

I preached this sermon on Good Friday, April 2, 2021 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Fort Wayne, IN. The lectionary text cited is the Passion Narrative from John’s Gospel. A recording of the service can be found here.

—

What can we say, now that we have arrived here?

This is the moment in the Christian year when words fail us, when our platitudes turn to dust. What meager phrase is adequate to express what we see, what we feel, what we fear in this place: the first and only time in the history of creation when we face the prospect of being truly, utterly alone in the cosmos? What could we say that would ever be a sufficient offering, a word of consolation to our God as he hangs on the cross?

For that is what we are doing today, on Good Friday: we are keeping vigil at the side of our Lord as he dies for us. We plant ourselves here, amid the skulls, at the foot of his cross, and we wait, and we watch, not because we can change anything or solve anything, but because somehow we know that to love him is to be present in this moment. Nobody should have to die alone.

But in our waiting and watching, still, perhaps, we wonder how to express to him what we feel—all the things that we always wanted to say, but never quite could.

My Lord and my God, how quickly the time went; how much more I wish I had told you while we were together. But now we are here in this valley of shadows, and you are slipping away, and there is so little time left. Please don’t leave us. But if you must leave us, what would you have me say?

—

If you have ever lost someone close to you, you know that this is not just a Good Friday conundrum; when death is imminent, when it is time for that last conversation, we often struggle with what to say. We are often not very good with endings.

And in those moments, beside the hospital bed, in the moment before we must finally turn away, memory and regret and fear can leave us as inarticulate as Mary and the Beloved Disciple, gazing upon the face of the one who is leaving us, but saying not a word, our tongues parched by grief.

For what can we say, now that we have arrived here?

I recently read, though, that, in the end, there are, in truth, just four things that are most important to say to someone you care about before they die. Four statements that we can offer: Forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you.

So perhaps that is what we can offer today; perhaps that is the best we can do, to give our dying God the same, humble tenderness we might offer each other. To say to him: Forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you.

—

Lord Jesus, forgive me. Forgive me for all the times I forgot you, while you patiently waited for me to remember. Forgive my stubbornness and my smallness, and all the times that I got in the way of the joy that you yearned to nurture within me. Forgive me for all the ways that I have passively accepted a world that still crucifies the vulnerable and disregards the poor and the meek and the hungry, whom you have blessed. Forgive me for my silence when I ought to have spoken; and for my careless words when I ought to have been still. Forgive me for holding you at a distance, for trying to preserve myself from the transformational intensity of your love. Lord Jesus, forgive me.

Lord Jesus, it may sound strange to say it, but I forgive you, too. I forgive you for not being present in the ways that I needed you to be when I felt so alone. I forgive you for inaugurating a church that at times, in your name, has harmed so many people. I forgive you for creating a world that allows for sin to break people apart, for this mortal life where we seem to lose everyone we love. I forgive you for being so hard to understand at times, and so hard to follow. I forgive you for not being the type of strong and mighty savior that I expected, the kind that would keep me safe. I forgive you for all these things, mostly because I need to let them go, in order to see you properly, in your fullness, and not the incomplete version of you that has been distorted by my own pain and confusion and resentment. I forgive you because I want to know you as you are, not as I wish you were. Lord Jesus, I forgive you.

Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you for loving me beyond comprehension. I know that your love is why you hang upon the cross, why you choose to lay down your life for your friends, and although I cannot fully understand it, I feel it—its saving, healing power—deep in my soul. Thank you for showing us what it means to live as a human being fully alive, fully in communion with our Father in heaven, fully in partnership with our neighbors and with the web of all creation. Thank you for the outpouring gift of your grace in water and bread and wine and oil; for giving your flesh and your Spirit to us, unworthy as we may be. Thank you for your church, which, at its best, has saved my life and taught me the meaning of community. Thank you for the invitation to live a life caught up in the joy your life, and to love with a heart enraptured by your undying love. Lord Jesus, thank you.

Lord Jesus, I love you. Not perfectly. Not as consistently as I might hope to. But I love you. I love you for challenging me to be better; for believing in us, in our potential, these wayward children that you have fashioned out of the dust of the earth. I love you for your tenacity and your gentleness; your courage and your peace. I love you because you have taught me how to be myself, the way you created and intended for me to be. I love you because you were yourself, purely and utterly yourself. And as your life slips away on this day, know that I will carry you with me now, for all the days to come, until death is but a memory, until I see your face again. But for now, Lord Jesus, just know that I love you. And it’s ok to go, if you must. I know you must.

—

What can we say, now that we have arrived here?

Forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you.

And then, it is finished.

But is enough. It is, perhaps, all he ever wanted us to say.

Holy Week at Home #6: Good Friday

A continuation of my “Holy Week at Home” posts; on Good Friday we stand at the foot if the Cross as Jesus is crucified.

Look up.

He is unfurled
aloft,

Like a flag of surrender,
So that you might see, and know
It is finished.

Like a scroll,
So that you might read the lines on his skin and find the place
where it is written in rivulets of tears:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
I have been anointed to proclaim release.
And I am releasing—
I am giving up
my spirit.

A broken body
Arched like a question
inquiring into your frailty;
testing whether it is tolerable
For love to cost this much.

But if you will stay
In this place without answers
Then you will learn that the
rending and the mending of the world
are two notes of the same song.

You will learn that there is no such thing
as dispassionate salvation
or tentative redemption.

And how in the Divine economy
everything is given
And returned
Eternally.

You will learn that nothing is ever wasted
even when waste is the only credible conclusion.
Even when all the evidence suggests defeat.

You will learn that victory is not the same as winning;
that truth is not the same as certainty;
And that peace is not the same as pleasure.

But all of this is offered now, only now,
On this desiccated and necessary hill,
The final bequeathment of a dying God
Who cannot teach you the secrets of eternity
Without entering finitude.

Look up, into his face.

Look up, and see how he is grieving all of your endings.

Look up, and see how he is dying all of your deaths.

Look up, and see the world pass into something new.

Look up.

Only Questions: A Good Friday Sermon

This sermon was preached on Good Friday, April 19, 2019, at Christ Episcopal Church in Alameda, CA.

Shortly before condemning Jesus to death, Pilate asks him–and thus unknowingly asks God–a bitter, heartbreaking , fundamental question, one that humanity has likely been asking from the very beginning: “what is truth?”

He receives no answer.

There is no answer to give that could be encapsulated into words. Truth, the very embodiment of Truth, is a bruised and battered face staring back into his own face, and it is beyond articulation.

Like Pilate and everyone else who participates in the crucifixion of God Incarnate, we are deep in a mystery now, a place where words are largely inadequate, where answers are few, where only questions prevail. We must tread carefully, for this is terrifying holy ground we stand upon today, Good Friday, and we should not profane it with endless speculation.

We are at the foot of the Cross, gazing up at Jesus, who in turn gazes back at us, blood and tears streaming down his face—and in this place, tidy, insightful observations about the nature of God and clever turns of phrase about sin and forgiveness and sacrifice all dry up like chaff and blow away in the wind.

The Cross rejects every attempt to understand it fully. It is not a place for self-assured theologizing or domesticated spiritualizing. It is a raw, awful, unspeakable place in which we find ourselves.

Last night, on Maundy Thursday, Jesus told us to love one another, and we did so. We washed one another’s feet and broke bread together with the best of intentions. We perceived that this was the proper way to live, to care, to be present in God’s kingdom. And on Easter we will no doubt come back together as a people renewed and forgiven for all the times we have failed to love, returning to our senses after this day of desperation and horror, and we will recommit ourselves to the fullness of life that God offers freely in the light of resurrection.

But today we are no-place. Today we have murdered the very best of our intentions to love. We have traveled to the Place of the Skull, the place where confidence is shattered like bone. Today we stand at the farthest point from comfort, the place where Jesus, God-With-Us, He who was the smiling babe in the manger, the youth in the temple, the wise teacher on the mountain, the Holy One, cries out to the Father for some sign of presence and receives…nothing. No answer. No words.

And in that silence we know what it is to forsake and to be forsaken.

Yes, we are deep in a mystery, one so strange and terrible that any attempt to sort it out, to prod at its depths, to explain it, results in cheap, brittle platitudes.

Think about of all the things that you should never, ever say when someone has experienced a great loss in their life: things like

“It’s all part of God’s plan.”

“Everythinghappens for a reason.”

“When one door closes, another one opens.”

These are things we say to each other that are usually more about soothing our own sense of confusion and fear rather than simply being present, deeply present, to the pain of another.

And yet these trite, hollow, inadvertently callous attempts at comfort are exactly what we so often apply to our encounter with Jesus on the Cross. We want to justify this awful thing, to make sense of it, to assure ourselves that God knew what God was doing the whole time. We approach Golgotha and see the crucified Christ writhing in agony and fear, and we say, to Him, as we do to others: “everything happens for a reason! Your suffering is part of God’s plan!”

And these words are like yet more nails, hammered and stammered into the endless void of His suffering.

The Church has done this since the beginning, in various ways. It’s only human, perhaps. We don’t like sitting with questions, and we rely too much on explanations.

Some of us want to reason the Cross away as God’s clever, elegant, brutal plan to atone for our sins, to make proper restitution for our brokenness, as if the cosmos were constructed like an accounting system or a court of law.

Or, equally tempting for some of us and yet equally limiting: we confine the Cross to the realm of human political drama, as if Jesus was nothing more than an enlightened social justice prophet murdered by “conservative” religious authorities and imperial forces—those bad, unenlightened others that of course look nothing like us. As if the Cross was merely an unfortunate byproduct of a backwards political system rather than what it actually is: the fundamental, unanswerable question at the core of all the pain which we experience and inflict upon each other.

Every time we try to reconstruct the Cross in a way that suits us, in a way that provides easy answers, in a way that excuses us from the narrative, we are simply building another instrument of torture to re-crucify that which we cannot understand.

No more of this, I ask you. No more. Lay down your easy theories of atonement that taste of sour wine; stop casting lots for your competing theologies of the Cross. For one day, let us stop trying to figure it out. Look into the face of Christ crucified and let Him be all that He is, uncertain and frightening and heart-rending, the face of Truth.

And let that wordless recognition of Truth, terrible as it may be, let it be enough today, because it is all we are given. Just as with Pilate, Jesus has no further answers for us.

It is called Good Friday because it is God’s Friday—the day in which God presents us with a mystery, a deep mystery, a Man who is on a cross for reasons so strange and intimate that they are as distant as an all-consuming black hole, and yet as close as our own breath.

And yes, we know in our hearts that there is more to the story, and that perhaps soon, very soon, we will fumble our way toward the answer of the empty tomb and the radiant joy of something entirely new. But not now. Not yet.

What is truth, we ask? Look at the Cross. It is staring us in the face, wordless and unutterable. Approach it cautiously, without certainty. Touch it if you dare; look into the void and see God staring back at you. Today, this is all we have.