It is strange that in this holiest week of the Church year, we are in exile from our worshipping communities and, instead, dependent on Facebook, Zoom, Facetime, Google, and our iPhones. And in real life and real time, we have been thrown into a horrific pandemic, an experience that many of us will not live to see again. And in this holiest of weeks, what we relive is a time of joyous celebration with songs, palms and a parade, then five days later a bloody and torturous suffering and death, followed by a resurrection and an empty tomb. And this week, in real time, the Surgeon General of the United States, speaking of COVID-19, has called this very week, “the hardest and saddest week” thus far. 

Since Palm/Passion Sunday has passed, I’d like to offer some observations on Good Friday and Easter. The readings for the Good Friday liturgy are very challenging: Isaiah, Hebrews, and the Gospel of John. The Gospel lesson from John (18:1 -19:42), The Passion, is the hardest to face, as it’s what Will Willmon calls a “horribly violent tale,” one of betrayal,  deceit, abuse, corruption, failure of nerve, greed, blood and guts, extreme torture and suffering, ending with the crucifixion of Jesus who spent six hours nailed to a cross before he died. For those who believed in Jesus during his public life, the week we call Holy Week was a bleak and grim time, just as it is for us now. With a pandemic raging through the world, this is a profoundly terrifying time, a time of inestimable suffering, just as it was for Jesus. Good Friday is about recognizing this suffering and terror and making it our own in reflection and prayer. The way to do this is to read the Gospel lesson from John, one of the most significant texts of terror in all of scripture, and in the quiet of the day, let it move and sadden us. After all, Jesus’ suffering and death is for our sake and is at the very core of our faith. This is our story, and on this day especially, our reality. 

In the Gospel lesson for Good Friday, Jesus utters his last words from the cross, “It is finished.” (John 12:30) His cry is one of surrender and even capitulation; a way of saying to the Father, I have done what you asked of me and now it is over. “It is finished” signals the fulfillment of his work and with his death, the end of his suffering. Jesus is victorious and he has been laid in the tomb. On Easter morning, with the help of the “two angels in white” we, with Mary, realize that the tomb is empty and that Jesus has triumphed over death in his Resurrection and come back to life with us. And again, it is the Gospel of John (20: 1-18) that tells us all we need to know. So please, in the quiet of Easter morning, read John with the knowledge of all that has taken place, for it is with this knowledge that we look ahead. And it is the empty tomb that grounds us and compels us to a new existence, a new way of living with a new “normal,” the coronavirus. Holy Week could not have come at a more appropriate time.

—Father Peter Kountz

About Friday Reflections:

Every Friday, Father Peter and Suzanne Glover Lindsay share written reflections highlighting a particular theme. This week's Friday Reflection explores the topic The Arc of Suffering.