By: Erin M Diericx 

A devotion for Good Friday.

This past year has felt like as though we have been carrying a heavy cross with the pandemic. The first responders and essential workers have caring for those who have been and are suffering from the coronavirus; some have watched hundreds die, despite their best efforts. Under pressure from society, the scientists have been working around the clock to create vaccines. The restaurant industry have been recreating how individuals eat out by having more take out options and fewer tables. Industry have been new innovative ways to meet a change in how products are demanded. Teachers have been burning the midnight oil to find new ways to teach and connect with their students. Children have been stuck at home without opportunities to physically see and touch their friends and grandparents. Parents have had to take an active role in their children’s education as well as doing their work for their job. For the disabled and those compromised immune systems, they have been forced to put their lives on paused and quarantine, stay home indefinitely. Everyone has had their lives impacted by the pandemic; everyone has had their own cross to bare. 

In today’s context, Jesus would have suffered and died from the coronavirus. He would have been working in the hardest hit cities. He would have been holding the dying in his loving arms. He would have been comforting those who were grieving. He would have been feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and finding ways to connect with the housebound. He has been through the Holy Spirit guiding us to care for each other in mist the pain and the grief.

And then he would have died, while doing all he could to save us. Even on his deathbed, he would have been comforting those who were caring for him. That’s what he does on the cross. After ministering to those in need, those who society has casketed aside and forgotten, Jesus died in agony, in the most painful way known, out of love for us. And even in his death, Jesus does something amazing. He went to hell to reclaim those souls who were there for unknown reason in order to take them to the Kingdom of God and to give them eternal life. And after three days, Jesus rises and comes back to us in his resurrection in order to offer us eternal life and entrance into the Kingdom of God. It is an unending love story; it never ends, because God’s love for us, his children, never ends; his love never fails, even under the worst conditions.

The crucifixion is one of the most gruesome events that has ever happened. It has betrayal. It has beatings. It has lies and demands. It has questions. It has confusion and disgust. It has grief. It has murder and death. And yet it has triumph and unconditional, undying love, because Jesus’s death is not the end of the story. No, it is just the beginning of what God is doing in the world. This is why its called Good Friday. Even at humanity’s worst, God does something amazing, because he loves us so.