The Light of Good Friday

Good Friday is a day of darkness. The somber story of Jesus death, the central event.  Around his death, leading up to and after, we have pain, fear, foreboding, and despair.   There is darkness at noon, and for three hours after, the sun is hidden away.  The temple curtain is torn.  Jesus gives up his spirit to God. In Luke’ s account, there is a sense of surrender, but another witness, Mark, tells us that even Jesus felt abandoned : "my God, my God why have you forsaken me? "

Since last night’s service of Tenabrae , when the lights went out one by one, we have been in darkness. We struggle to find a moment of relief, a point of light.  And we seem to struggle in vain.    The weight of death is upon us.  It is finished…we are enveloped in the shadows.

And yet, and yet, would we be here tonight, some 2000 years later, if darkness and shadow had not been overcome?  No, for in this darkness, the Christ candle still shines. There is still light, a  light of Good  Friday, however faint, however dim it might seem .

How can that be? How can there be a light on this day of our Savior’s death?   

It seems that if there is light on Good Friday, it must be a light of a different sort. It can’t be the bright light of Easter morning, which we long for impatiently. That would be rushing things. It would be too soon. We are here, now, not there yet.   

Nor is Good Friday light, a soft light that makes a room glow. Its not candle light either, like that which would emanate from silver candlesticks at a formal dinner. Nor is it the pink light bulb that one puts in a lamp to make everyone look younger and more attractive.  Good Friday light is not the twinkling light of Christmas, shining and blinking good cheer. It is not even the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.  We are not there yet, my friends.

No, Good Friday light is different. It exposes, it reveals, it illuminates the truth of our existence. And the truths of our faith. It can be a harsh light.  We avert our eyes from it, It is a light, which  causes us to squint or blink.

Good Friday’s light is like the light we turn on at 2 or 3 or 4 am, when we can’t sleep, and we wonder where our life is going. We hear the creaking of the furniture, and furnace rumbling, and we  switch on the lamp and ask: Did my daughter come home safe ? Is my son going to be OK ?  Will I meet the mortgage this month?  What about my mother’s health?  Why am I so upset at my boss, or my coworker?  Can I find a way to forgive what has happened to me ? Where is my life going ? Good Friday light shines on the  middle of the night questions which  expose our hurts and vulnerabilities and our human worries.  Good Friday light illuminates these.

Good Friday light is also, the single stark light bulb, which hangs in the interrogation room of a jail, where they bring in the political prisoners for questioning.  It lights up the pain of the inmate’s face, the fear, the terror of what is to come. It exposes the anger of the jailer and how he or she too is trapped by violence.  It shows us how many have been caught in the net of  repression and torture, how many through the ages, even to this day. It is the light that shows us the Gestapo, Guantanamo, and ISIS. And in that light, we see Jesus too, caught by the Romans, as a political prisoner, that he was.  The human capacity to hurt each other through institutions and governments and terrorism is shown up by this Good Friday light.

We find Good Friday light in hospitals. In the surgical operating theatre, it is that large, round, bright light which exposes the human body in all its wonder and fragility. It is that light which allows the doctor to to see inside the human body, to carefully cut through flesh, not to hurt but to help, help the patient live, live longer, live better. But this cut is painful too. It slices through our bodyliness, our frailty, our humanness.  The light of good Friday flashes in the ICU, blinking, indicating heart rate and respiration and oxygen levels, showing progress, signs of vitality or not.  

All these lights, all these, illuminate, expose and throw into relief our human condition. Good Friday light is the light, which reveals the Real. Not what we would like to have happen, not what we wish for, not what we wish away, but what is.

When we accept that this light exposes what is real and true, rather than hiding or running away, we move from denial to  surrender.  Then we can begin to see that contained within the Good Friday light in the middle of the night, or in the prison, or in the hospital, is the light of Christ. It is the same light which lights  the Christ candle which burns on our Communion table before us. It is the light which burns eternal in our faith, even as the lights go out at Tenebrae, plunging us into what seems to be enveloping blackness.  

Within the darkness of Good Friday, is a light that reflects and refracts back from Easter. The hope that event has meant for the world is reflected back to us through the ages. It is the hope that when we ask those middle of the night questions, we find that our faith brings us to dawn, where we find relationships of love, in family and community which sustain us.

It is the hope that even as there is horrifying brutality in the world, many are committed to a peaceful way, and to bringing justice to victims.

And it is the hope that inspire so many to find ways to cure human disease and find paths to healing. Good Friday light reflects love, justice and healing promise of the new day.

We celebrate Good Friday  solemn memory, because  it tells us and show us the truth of our faith. That Jesus suffered an innocent’s death, that he died for us. A death on a cross. The central mystery of our faith.

In so doing, he yielded in love for us, to the darkness.     And in so doing, he  revealed to us that even in this darkness, the darkness of Good Friday,  there is light, the Christ light,  burning ever  bright.    

“In Christ was life, and the life was the light of all peoples. . The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. “

Amen