This morning, I baked a pumpkin loaf. I had sourdough discard and pumpkin puree to use up, so I figured, “why not?” But it felt quite strange and incongruous as I mixed the batter and popped it into the oven. Outside, the sun is shining, the daffodils blooming, and spring is afoot. Inside, the warm, autumn-like smells of ginger, nutmeg, and molasses were emanating from my oven. As I thought about it, it started to seem more and more fitting for Good Friday. There is something about making space for death that always feels somewhat wrong. We resist it, even when we are forced to encounter it face to face. So it made sense to me, this incongruousness, this recipe from the season of loss and paring back, on this day when we remember what it feels like to go all the way down into the dark.
I both love and hate that the church offers us Good Friday. I don’t think the church would work for me if there was not room for that ambiguity, the strength of emotion, the unresolved tension that is left hanging on Good Friday. We both need and hate that space, I think. Our faith, our lives, wouldn’t feel true without it. But by the same token, we don’t really relish sinking into dark, complex, and unresolved emotions most of the time. We’d really rather skip ahead to Easter— to the reemergence of hope, to the unanticipated victory, to the promise of restoration. Most of us have already purchased our Easter hams and made plans to celebrate. Perhaps it’s less that we need this space, and more that this would be the reality anyway, regardless of whether we create the space to recognize it. I find myself fighting it this Good Friday. Haven’t we had enough this year? Aren’t we all so ready to cling to something hopeful even if it’s false or too soon? Aren’t we ready to skip ahead to the promise of joy, even if it means covering up the presence of harder things that we know we must face? I want to be writing about hope right now, about new life, about resurrection, and making all things new. But my soul is saying otherwise.
I awoke in the night sometime between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to a dream about witnessing a shooting. I lay there, heart pounding, body sweating, breathing by myself in the night. I refused to check the time, not wanting to know how much of this long night still lay ahead of me. The world is broken. We are too. But we know a man, who in all his heavenly glory, goes all the way down to the bottom of our brokenness, our despair, our fear, and our hatred. He goes so far down that we are sure he’ll never return from it. He couldn’t possibly. But instead of Jesus’ courage in the face of this darkness comforting and inspiring us, most of the time I think it fills us with fear. We celebrate Jesus’ victory come Easter Sunday, but frankly, we’re usually not too excited about his methods. We crave a victory that circumvents our fears and our wounds, but Jesus models something different. Jesus moves all the way through the unbearable things and breaks their power over us. He breaks death itself, but not by ignoring it. This is the Jesus we are called to follow. For today at least, discipleship might look like facing the dark.
Wellspring 