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Good Friday
Minute for Mission
I cannot think of Good Friday without hearing the old hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” And I cannot hear it without letting my thoughts wander to the many ways we so casually use the cross: as jewelry or as tattoos, or to promote certain products or services.
I cannot imagine what that cross must have been like for Jesus to bear, what kind of pain, abandonment, sorrow, and yet deep and abiding love he must have embodied. And yet I cannot help but see the cross is so many places in our world today.
On this Good Friday, I see it most clearly in the eyes of a man who has learned of yet another relapse in his son’s efforts to escape his addiction to methamphetamines. His eyes reflect the helplessness, the guilt, the shame, the anger, the love, the deep sorrow, much like the eyes of those who loved Jesus and watched him die on that hill called “the skull.” It is not simply heartbreak; it is the renting of one’s heart. Drug addiction in our world reveals our shared pathology, our inability to craft communities and places of deep meaning that satisfy the urges and curiosities of our sisters and brothers. We are all a part of it, just as we are a part of Jesus’ crucifixion.
The economic, social, and political systems that perpetuate drug addiction in our world are no greater or lesser than the systems of oppression that led to Jesus’ death on the cross. May we commit ourselves to living in ways that challenge the status quo, that disrupt the cycles of addiction, and that make hope real even here, even now.
—Rev. Trace Haythorn, president, The Fund for Theological Education, Atlanta, Georgia
PC(USA) General Assembly Staff
Elder Linda Garrett, GAMC
Kevin J. Garvey, BOP
Karen Gasaway, GAMC
Leah Gass, OGA
On this dark and painful day, O God, help us know your presence with us as we face the cross yet again. Open our eyes to the crosses borne in the lives of those around us, and empower us to be Christ to those who long for hope beyond the pain of now. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Ps. 22, 148 Ps. 105, 130
Gen. 22:1–14; 1 Peter 1:10–20
John 13:36–38 or John 19:38–42
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