Easter is about Hope, but first...

Good Friday is for all of us who've lost something we love

Today is Good Friday. In the Christian tradition, Good Friday is the day of the crucifixion of Jesus—the violent death of a beloved Savior, friend, son, teacher. The biblical account tells us that in the moment of his death, the sky turned black, the temple curtain tore, both the natural world and the sacred one crying out in grief and despair—this is not how it should be!

What we know, all these centuries later, is that Friday is dark. Saturday is dark. And then: resurrection! The tomb empty, the savior alive, death conquered for all time. Easter is about life—specifically new life, something we’ve given up on surprising us with a second chance. It’s bunnies and chicks, pastels and pretty dresses, celebration songs and the season’s first strawberries and asparagus. It’s egg hunts and happy children, sunshine and hallelujahs.

But imagine for a minute that you don’t know Easter’s coming. Imagine how it felt to a friend of Jesus on Friday, or a devout follower. Or his mother. Imagine the despair, the fear, the deep darkness. Imagine the loneliness, the silence—what we believed is over. This person we loved is gone. My beloved son is gone. This movement that changed everything for us was cut short in an instant—was it true? Did it matter? Where do we go from here? Will we ever feel hope again? Is hope real?

One of the things I treasure most about my life as a Christian is the pairing of Good Friday and Easter, because it feels true to me, true to the human experience, true to the ache of life on this planet. Treasured things die, and also new life is all around us. Grief is real and piercing, and so is joy.

I’m so grateful for a faith tradition that guides us through the wreckage of loss and death and also the celebration of resurrection and redemption. I don’t want a faith that sacrifices one for the other…all despair or all hallelujah. I need both, because my life is both. Because all our lives are both: a wild, beautiful mash-up of love and heartbreak, terror and beauty, hope and despair. That’s how it is to be a human on this earth, and I need a faith that’s durable enough to carry the weight of all of it.

So there will be Easter—there always is. Spring always comes. My beloved magnolia always blossoms, lush and show-offy. There will be little girls running through the courtyard in pastel dresses, mouths full of chocolate, baskets full of eggs. There will be sunshine and hope and laughter.

But before the eggs and the joy and the celebration songs, today is a day for grief—thank God. Today is a day to hold your losses out in front of you with both hands, like the pieces of a beloved broken plate. It will never go back together—that’s how life is.

Things break—hearts. Friendships. Marriages. Bones. Promises. Things break.

And Good Friday lets us grieve all the things that have broken. Thank God.

When you grieve today, you’re not alone. The friends of Jesus know grief. His brothers and beloved disciples know what it is to lose a friend. Mary, Jesus’ mother, knows what it is to suffer an unimaginable loss. You’re not alone in your suffering, in your despair.

Today is the day we gather in solidarity as people who grieve—whatever you’ve lost, whatever you broke, whatever makes your breath catch in your chest just thinking about it—today you’re not alone.

I know it’s a busy day—in a minute, I’ll head out on the Trader Joe’s/wine shop/drugstore loop with my cart and my tote bags…peanut butter eggs, pimento cheese, sparkling rosé. Flowers, Peeps, berries.

But here’s what I’m also going to do today, and what I’d like to invite you into: I’m going to find a moment, and I’m going to sit with the grief of being human—of war and hunger, heartbreak and devastation, children who struggle, broken bodies and broken spirits. I’m going to sit in silence as a way of bearing witness to my own losses and griefs, as well as the heartbreaks and losses of the people I love and the world we live in.

This is what it is to be human. This is what it means to know Good Friday’s darkness and honor it deep in your bones.

The sky turned black, and the curtain tore, and for a moment at least, my prayer for you is that you sit with your grief, and you allow yourself to feel it all, knowing that this is what it means to be alive—fragile and beloved and human. Thank God.

There will be hope and joy and candy. But not yet. Thank God.