Good Friday—Why?

It’s such a strong part of the story that sometimes I forget it represents a moment off the script. “My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?” Not exactly the words to rally the confused and frightened followers.

As far as Mark and Matthew are concerned, Jesus died bereft of faith. His last words were despairing, surprised, perhaps betrayed.

I’m not so good at getting all this stuff about redemption. But I can get the crying “why;” I know the feeling of forsaken. This is the stuff the keeps me calling myself Christian. The other stuff—the resurrection and the miracles—maybe those are metaphors. This doubt, this deep despair, this wondering, this grief—this is the stuff of human life, and this guy Jesus gets it.

When my father died, a friend said, “Always the gentleman, your dad has gone before.” There’s something to that thought—death doesn’t seem so scary, when I think my father’s there. That path, wherever it may lead, is somehow made familiar by his passage.

I think something like this about the crucifixion. However bad things get, this guy Jesus has seen worse. And, inasmuch as his story offers us some guideposts, suffering seems part of it. And doubt, and questioning, and emptiness, and loss.

Maybe this is heresy, but I’m not so comfortable with answering the question Jesus poses. I don’t get this thing of dying for my sins (even after Einstein opened up the time and space thing, I don’t get it). Jesus died because people killed him; and maybe God was missing in those moments. Jesus, who, after all, was there would know that more than me.

It is a weird and tiny comfort, that Jesus faltered at the last. It tells me that this journey is a tough one—it trips up the best of us. And somehow, we get through it.

© 2008 Melissa Capers