A Good Friday Re-Post: Extinguished

The last few months have found me stretched close my limit. Continual stresses, plan after plan to form, schedule after schedule to make. One would think such business in planning a wedding would be more of a hindrance for people marrying again and again, but I cannot say there is not joy in the planning, as hard to find as it sometimes is.

With all these distractions, it has been near impossible to post regularly, and I fear I will not be able to write much more until the end of April (if then!) as I am coming down to the last week (what was I thinking to attempt a two-part response post - though I do intend to finish, it will have to wait a little longer). But arguably more important than next week is the week we are presently in. I sit now in my office after participating in my church's Good Friday service, and I am struck once again by the sadness, overcome as in years past with the melancholy. To mark this occasion, one I feel to be the most poignant moment in the Church Year, if not the most important (many would argue the coming celebration of Easter holds a smidge more sway), I offer again to my readers the reflection on Good Friday I wrote last year. What follows is a reprint of the entry, "Extinguished."
___________

It is finished.

Jesus is captured. He is rejected. He is despised. He is mocked.

The Lord, the Christ, has taken upon himself the sins of the world. As man, he is the only one who stands outside the arena of guilt and rebellion in which we all are gathered. As God, he puts aside all that it means to be God (power, glory, justice, reign, sovereignty) and steps silently into this savage arena. With only whispered words, fragments of a holy conversation lost on the ears of all who surround him, he subjects himself to our brutal, impatient violence. We pour out upon him all our misguided wrath, and as it was foreshadowed by prophets, such undeserved punishment pleases the Creator, who in misery and sorrowful acceptance, stays his hand from turning back upon us the wrath we gleefully pour out.

It is finished.

Jesus is stricken. He is wounded. He is bruised. He is pierced.

The Lord, the Christ, bows his head and enters a place no god would dare trod. He gives himself over to those who could never foresee, do not comprehend, and perhaps still will never understand who he is, and what he has done. Saturated with our spit, soggy with his own blood, torn and flayed, no one in this dark arena sees the mystery. Before our eyes, manifested, incarnated, is the Mystery of Grace. It is a mystery he dies. It is a mystery he allows a single blow to land upon him, allows but one hand to arrest him, yoke him. It is a mystery he enters this arena in the first place.

It is finished.

Jesus is dead. The Christ is dead. The Lord is dead. Our God is dead.

The Lord, the Christ, is laid in a tomb. The sky over the arena is black. A peal of thunder, and we who inhabit the arena could swear we hear the anguished roar of the Creator. Our tumult settles. The din falls silent. We witness a stone heaved over the tomb and sealed. The choked, dying words descends upon the arena floor: "It ... is ... finished." We answer with whispers choked with our shock. What have we done? And yet, this day is Good. This is Good Friday. The Mystery of Grace is dead, yet lingers. Like a fog refusing to dissipate, we are surrounded by tragedy mixed with wonder, grief mixed with reverence, guilt mixed with awe.

It is finished.

The lights fade and go out. The candles are extinguished. All is dark.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

- Bernard of Clairvaux