On Good Friday our baby Paul was born-still.
I remember the irony of that “Good” Friday. Our son’s genetic anomalies led our church into 52 days of fasting and prayer. We wanted our son to be healed, and yet, sometimes, our prayers felt, well, schizophrenic. One prayer would be “let this cup pass…not my will but Your will.” Other days we told God what the “Word” said, and the Word revealed that it was indeed God’s will to heal Paul.
After Paul’s death, we wondered if we had picked a prayer pattern and stuck with it if the results would have been different. Maybe that Good Friday would have been good. Depending on your theology of healing you land on one side or the other. What we’ve discovered through the years is that it’s more about our theology of suffering than our theology of healing. Whether you know it or not you have a theology of suffering. Your view of;
Why is there suffering in the world?
Why do good people suffer?
Why did the God-man suffer?
Why did Jesus allow human beings to kill him?
What good could come from such grievous brutality?
Some people believe as Jesus hung on the Cross “the wrath of God was satisfied.” I’ve never known God that way.
So, this is is my theological assumption: Suffering happens on this side of Heaven. I believe that God is The Way and can guide my feet through the darkest of nights. I am convinced that God is Love and I can be held in God’s Loving presence when the worst is tearing me apart. I have known God as The Life and Life has faced death and anything else Hell has to offer me every-single-time.
When we gave Paul’s body to the University of Michigan’s Teratological Unit and followed by cremation, we did it with God.
On Good Friday Paul was born-still. His stillness gave me God.
On Good Friday and always, Jesus is the Way, Life, and Love for the world.
We leave you with a prayer-poem from Ted Loder.
Shock Me with Terrible Goodness
Holy One,
Shock and save me with the terrible goodness of this Friday,
And drive me deep into my longing for your kingdom
Until I seek it first-
Yet not first for myself,
But for the hungry
And the sick
And the poor of your children,
For prisoners of conscience around the world,
For those I have wasted
With my racism
And sexism
And ageism
And nationalism
And religionism,
For those around this mother earth and in this city
Who, this Friday, know far more of terror than of goodness;
That, in my seeking first the kingdom,
For them as well as for myself,
All these things may be mine as well:
Things like a coat and courage
And something like comfort,
A few lilies in the field,
The sight of birds soaring on the wind,
A song in the night,
And gladness of heart,
The sense of your presence
And the realization of your promise
That nothing in life or death
Will be able to separate me or those I love,
From you love
In the crucified one who is our Lord,
And in whose name and Spirit I pray.