Over the last few weeks, the idea of keeping our eyes on Jesus has come up in conversations with directees and others several times. So I’ve been sitting with it. I followed my imagination to whatever images of Jesus came up. I began to see him telling stories to kids, with women at a well, petting lambs(!?), and, of course, walking on water. What I wasn’t expecting, is that I no longer went straight to an image of Jesus hanging on the cross.
As my faith has evolved1 and i’ve untangled theologies and theories — in many ways I’ve shifted my focus to Jesus’ life rather than his death. I’m beginning to realize that in the shift, I’ve lost something. When I stopped imagining Jesus hanging from the cross — I lost the comfort and solidarity of Jesus as one who suffered.
Rev. Dr. Veronice Miles writes this: What if [Jesus’] prolonged silence and painful cry from the cross is really intended to call us toward a life of vocation and embolden us to stand in solidarity with those who suffer, so that anguished cries might cease? Maybe Jesus’ cry is not his alone, but a timeless cry on behalf of millions of suffering people who have felt and will feel forsakened by God and humanity, lest someone answer their call. Perhaps his anguished cry is intended to touch us at the core of our being so that we, his present-day disciples, may remember his teachings and endeavor to life therein.
On Good Friday we can simply say look at what happened. Before we jump to Easter Sunday or atonement theories and definitely before we sift through all our (many, many) questions, we can look to the suffering of Jesus. We can see ourselves there. We, like Jesus, have been embarrassed, hated, in pain, humiliated, betrayed, exhausted and have surely felt abandoned by God. We can see ourselves in his suffering yes, but we can go beyond that — we can see the world’s collective suffering there hanging with him. Good Friday invites us to see the suffering all around us more clearly and as Miles writes it can invite us to stand in solidarity with those who suffer.
I’m wondering today, who might you see more clearly in the silence? Whose cry might you hear in the words “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” How will you stand in solidarity with those who suffer?
I’ll leave you with the beginning of a Jan Richardson2 blessing that I’ll share tonight at our Good Friday service:
We never
would have wished it
to come to this,
yet we call
these moments holy
as we hold you.
Holy the tending,
holy the winding,
holy the leaving,
as in the living.
Links & Spiritual Direction News
Thank you again to all of my guest writers during Lent— if you haven’t had a chance to check out the Baptismal Stories shared over the last 6 weeks here are the links: Iesha, Jenny, Jamie, Catherine and Ashley. Thank you friends!
I currently have space available for new directees. If spiritual direction is something that you or someone you know might be interested in, please reach out — I can be contacted at hollyporterphillips@gmail.com. I’ve written here a little about what spiritual direction is to me, if you’d like to know more!
I love this language, but it’s not mine so I’ll point you to the good work that Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu are doing at Evolving Faith.
Song of the Winding Sheet by Jan Richardson