3pm Good Friday 2020
Where should I be?
Where am I?
Sat in the garden.
With my feet up.
With fresh Hot Cross Buns
cooling in the kitchen.
Relaxing in the sunshine
With headphones on
And Facebook open on my phone
Listening while someone else leads me to Jesus on the cross.
I am here
At home.
I don’t usually make Hot Cross Buns…
I don’t usually have time.
Where would I be?
I would be in church
Busy at Messy Church
Telling the story to both young and old.
Some for the first time,
Others for the hundredth time.
Setting up, talking,
making, sharing
clearing up,
And on to the next service:
Walking a walk of witness
Sat at 3pm with others
In the church.
Not at home.
If I’d been there two thousand years ago
Where would I have been?
I cannot put myself in His place
Save to ask him to show me
To help me understand
His love for us and for them:
His love for those who lied
Who tricked and cheated and betrayed
Who saw Him as a threat
An object of curiosity.
Who opted out to cover their backs
Who handed Him over to those
Who saw Him as just another day’s work
To have His back
whipped and ripped and torn.
Just another one to nail
to another cross
Another to jeer at, spit at and shame.
Another disgraced outside the city wall
On that chunk of rock.
Where would I be?
Asking Him to help me understand
His love for those
Who have scattered and betrayed
Run away and hidden
The bold made cold with terror:
With fear that they too will follow
where He is now being led.
Would I be there with the priests?
Fearful, oppressed religious leaders
Scared for their positions
Trying to do what’s right
And ending up scheming and lying
And taking part in an illegal trial?
Would I be there with the king?
Full of curiosity,
but not wanting to see
my own mistakes
reflected in his eyes?
Passing the buck as I pass Him on
To the Roman governor.
Would I be with the Romans?
Not understanding all the fuss these Jews keep making about their holy days?
And not having a clue what this man
was guilty of?
But fearful of my masters
Avoiding a riot
(more fearful of my masters
than of my wife)
Hoping that washing my hands
would really make
His blood go away?
Would I be in the jeering, mocking crowd?
Would I be with the soldiers, doing my job
Ramming thorns on His head to mock
Driving iron through His wrists and ankles?
Would I be asking Him to show me
His love for those alongside –
the one who cursed and kept on cursing,
and the one who cursed at first…
then stopped, and looked,
and understood
and asked to be with Him for eternity,
as he was with Him
in those terrible hours
of terrible pain
and terrible humiliation?
Where would I be?
Would I be with the women and John?
Watching in pain and agonised helplessness
But determined that the One
Who had not slept, not eaten
been passed from pillar to post
Lied about, mistreated
Mocked and beaten
Rejected and betrayed…
That He would not die alone
That He who was about to be
truly and completely alone
for the first time in eternity
As His Father turned His face away
Would still have someone near.
We know His love for them
He told John to love His mother
His mother to love John.
In the midst of His agony
Of the cost of His love for humanity
Becoming more costly with every breath,
More costly the closer
His Father’s rejection drew near
More costly the closer death came…
In the midst of all that,
His love still reached out to ensure that
the one who had said “Yes” to God,
who had carried Him in her body,
The one who had indeed
known a sword pierce her heart,
His love still reached out to make sure
that she would not be left alone should His brothers and sisters turn away from her.
Where would I have been?
Where should I be?
Here, in this place.
Now.
Asking Him – again – as every Good Friday –
To help me understand His love
His love for the scared religious leaders
The puppet king
The Roman governor
The soldiers
The scattered, hidden,
terrified and hope-less disciples
Those who locked and sneered and jeered
The criminals beside him
The women before him
And me.
Every sin that they committed
I have matched in my own way
I am, of myself, no better than they,
I am, as much as they, in need of
His love shown on that cross
The forgiveness won for me and them.
In this time of fear, grief, worry, anger,
Of helplessness and hopelessness
Of busyness, of loneliness, of confusion
Where should I be?
Here.
Sat in the garden.
With my feet up.
With fresh Hot Cross Buns
cooling in the kitchen
Here.
At the foot of the cross
With Him.
© 2020 – Jacquie Gardner – Published by All Saints Church with Permission
