Easter is coming up, but long before there were bunnies and chocolate eggs, there was a miraculous, glorious day when the Creator of the Universe took his son, already dead and in the tomb, and raised him to life again.
But before there was that amazing life-giving day, there was a terrible, horrible, painful day of suffering we now call Good Friday. For those of us who have seen the movies that depict the arrest, beating and crucifixion of Jesus, we know that he suffered more than we can imagine. We think of his disciples who all fled in fear of their own lives. Have you ever thought much about the women who were there through it all? The Bible tells us that there were a group of women who accompanied Jesus all through his ministry and took care of his needs and they stuck around til the very end. They were there for it all. Imagine how they felt to see their gentle teacher, son, healer and leader suffer as he did. Confusion, pain, grief, fear. What do we do with all those feelings ourselves? Good Friday is a chance to remember that our Creator also suffered. We have a God who understands.
For the past couple of years our local ministerial in town has done a joint Good Friday service and included some dramatic monologues as the message part of the service. Last year there were 12 done by the male pastors in town from the perspectives of the disciples. I decided that this year it was time to hear from the women at the cross. It has been a journey of faith as I’m not a theatre person. I sat down to the computer and wrote a drama with 5 characters from the various Biblical accounts of the women who were at the cross. My 17 year old daughter (who is a theatre person) edited it and became our director. We cast 4 other women from different churches as the other characters and together we are working on the 25 minute drama to present on Good Friday. As we read through our script the first week, we wept together at the words of Mary, the mother of Jesus in her anguish and have continued to weep at each rehearsal. We have also laughed and planned and listened and prayed together. And we, all mostly middle-aged women, have taken direction from a 17 year old who knows more about the theatre than all of us put together. So far this has been a wonderful walk to the cross for us together. We are truly becoming sisters of the cross, which is the name of the play.
The cross is what makes all of us brothers and sisters. The resurrection is the glorious, victorious event that gives us hope as the people of Christ, but the cross is the agony that binds us to one another. It is pain that brings people together, suffering that creates bonds that cannot be broken. As a group we decided that we wanted to end our Good Friday service with this drama. No singing, no prayer, no interpretation. Just silence to allow the sense of grief to sink in with just a single line to point to the possibility of hope. We need to allow ourselves to experience the pain and grief of the cross if we can truly celebrate the joy of resurrection. The cross binds us to Christ, but also to one another as we recognize the needs we each have for healing and forgiveness that was bought for us on that cross.
I hope that you will have a Good Friday that allows you to feel the pain and suffering enough to find your sisters and brothers and to prepare for the joy of resurrection.
